but 't is a sign of weakness of sight to see things out of their proportionate distance Much less probable is it that the Cholerick are more ingenious then the Melancholy since reflection is necessary to the making of a solid conclusion which the impatience of Choler cannot endure and indeed never was there seen a man of great parts who was not pensive And accordingly Northern people being more cold and reserv'd will carry it above other hotter Nations The Third said That as to Nations he conceiv'd that as not only the Plants but also the Pearls and Jewels of the East are more excellent and purer than those of other parts of the world so also are their Witts The Reason whereof is That the Sun coming from the East bestows the First-fruits of his own and other Celestial Influences upon the Orientals which Influences like the impression of Perfumes are most vigorous in their beginning Moreover we see that God made use of the excellence of the spirits of those people to make the first and greatest Law-givers and Sages If Authors of new and untrue Religions have been found there this fortifies rather then destroyes this Opinion more Witt being requisite to maintain a bad than a good cause As for Temperaments the Sanguine hath the advantage First because 't is the most healthful Complexion and Health is the principal condition of a good Witt which cannot display it self perfectly in a sick body Secondly because Blood is the proximate matter of spirits and he that hath good Blood must have plenty of spirits Thirdly because this is the Complexion of the amorous who are the most ingenious people of the world Whence the Poet said Quis fallere possit amantem But if the Question be What Exercise or Employment hath the most ingenious people 't is harder to be detemin'd so great Witts being found at this day of all sorts of professions that 't is difficult to judge of which there are most Some will prefer the Scholastick Devines for their subtle disputes and nice distinctions others the Rational Physicians for their discourses and conjectures upon the causes of hidden diseases others the Mathematicians for their curious searches into Heaven it self or the Lawyers who manage their affairs so advantageously above others The Fourth said That absolutely speaking there is no quarter of the world more Oriental or Occidental than another these words having been invented only in respect to Men themselves to some of whom one and the same people is Oriental and yet Occidental to others since the world is round and all the parts of a Sphere are of the same Nature What differences there are must be taken from something else than the four parts of the world and particularly from Cold and Heat Thus those that live under the Poles are of a different Complexion both of Body and Mind from those that are between the Tropicks According to which difference the Inhabitants of the temperate Zones must be the most ingenious Cold being too much an Enemy to Life to advance the Wit and excessive Heat burning the Humors no less within than without as the woolly hair and black skin of the Nations expos'd to it manifest So that 't is no presumption in the French and other Nations under the same Climate to award the preheminence to themselves in this matter For the operations of the Mind as well as the digestions and other natural operations of the Body require a temperate not an excessive Heat And the levity imputed to our Nation is a proof of it since commonly the most ingenious are least stedfast in executing the things they have devis'd But amongst the French I account none more ingenious than the Lawyers who confute the Philosophical Maxim which saith That whatever hath a beginning hath also an end since they render Suits immortal Instead of the four causes taught by Naturalists they create others without number and in spight of the Maxim which saith There is no Vacuum they make one at length in the purses of their Clients The Fifth said That since there are good and bad ingenious and sots in all Lands to be the one or the other dependeth not upon the Climate Heaven from whence the Soul descends being alike in all places Nor is it likely that professions render Men more or less ingenious since those to which people are lead by natural inclination are rather Effects than Causes of good or bad parts As for those to which we are perswaded or forc'd nothing can be inferr'd from them having no affinity with our Nature Lastly nor doth Temper always contribute to render Men ingenious since there are some so of all Tempers Ages and Sexes The true Cause is the proportion which happens to be between the Soul and the Body at the first conformation Whence the surest signs of good parts are taken from the figure of the Body and chiefly of the Head which if sharp never makes a wise man as on the contrary great Heads and broad Fore-heads are always ingenious of whatever Country Vocation and Temper they be CONFERENCE CXCIII Of the Fraternity of the Rosie-Cross I Find that these Brethren being associated in Germany two or three hundred years ago sware mutual Fidelity to observe the Laws of their Fraternity the chief of which was Secrecy never to speak or write but in the Allegories of their Cabal whose pretension is to re-establish all Discipilines and Sciences especially Physick which they say is ignor'd and ill practis'd by all others themselves alone having the Knowledge of so many Secrets that they hold the Philosopers Stone for one of the least and professing to imitate sundry other Societies of ancient time as first that of the Kings Priests and Philosophers of Aegypt under the names of Isis Osiris Apis Anubis and Mercury the mysteries whereof they hid under their Hieroglyphical Letters leaving the use of the common way of writing to the vulgar For proof whereof they alledge that the first Priest of this Fraternity being urg'd by Alexander to discover to him the Secret of Isis and Osiris told him for the whole Secret that they were not gods but men whom they worshipt With which Answer Alexander was so well satisfied that he writ word thereof to his Mother Olympias desiring her to burn his Letter as soon as she had read it for fear of Scandal The second Society which they alledge is the College of the Eumolpides so called from Eumolpus its Author an Eleusinian Priest at Eleusis in Athens in imitation of that instituted in Greece by Orpheus to the honor of Baochus of which Eumolpides the supream Sacrificer carry'd a golden key in his mouth to mind him of keeping the Secret which was not communicated to all the initiated in this Order but only to such as were of approv'd discretion The Third they say was that of the Samothracians who were never troubled with sickness or poverty the two grand scourges of Life maintaining themselves in perpetual
that she eat those Mandrakes and that they render'd her fruitful which is not at all in the Text and her Fruitfulness might proceed from the favour of God or some more fit means than that Herb. Nor is it an edible fruit neither did all the Women in the Scripture who of barren became fruitful eat Mandrakes 'T is therefore probable that this Plant hath neither the Form nor the Properties which vulgar and vain Antiquity attributes to it The fifth said 'T is easier to overthrow then to establish a Truth when the question is about things apparently repugnant to Reason which many times agrees not with our own experience whereby we see several contrary effects of one and the same Plant. As the pulp of an Orenge cools the peel heats and oil of the seeds is temperate The like may be said of Mandrake which according to the diversity of its Species and Parts may produce the different effects which are attested by Antiquity Apuleius in his Metamorphosis relating That a Physician deluded the malice of a Servant and a Stepmother by giving them the juice of Mandrake instead of poyson which they desir'd of him to kill a young man which caus'd them to think him dead when he was only in a deep sleep and Columella speaking of the soil where it grows Quamvis semihominis vesano gramine foeta Mandragorae pariat flores Moreover since there are middle Natures compos'd of two extremes as your Zöophytes between Plants and Animals to wit Spunges and Coral between Brute and Man the Ape between the soul and body of Man his Spirits why may there not be something of a middle Nature between Man and Plant to wit the Mandrake a Man in external Shape and a Plant in Effect and internal Form In brief we believe there is an Unicorn though no man of this age hath seen it why therefore may we not believe that there is such a Mandrake as most describe who affirm that they have seen one as I my self have also though I cannot affirm whether it were a true or false one CONFERENCE CC. Of Panick Fear THe Species conceiv'd in the Phantasie representing to the Intellect some future Good they beget Hope when Evil Fear 'T is not very hard to comprehend the way nor how he that sees himself pursu'd by a potent enemy betakes himself to flight by the Instinct of Nature which avoids what ever is destructive to her But the Mind is puzled to find the cause it sees not as of groundless Fear which nevertheless sometimes befalls the most resolute yea whole Armies which fly without any pursuer The Vulgar of the Ancients who made Deities of every thing especially of what they understood not thought Pan the God of Shepherds put this sudden Passion into the minds of men because oftentimes it happens to flocks of Sheep over which he is said to preside though there be no appearance of any Wolf to fright them whence they call'd it a Panick Terror Unless you had rather interpret Pan to be the Universal and Supreme Deity who giving the success of Battels sometimes immits such a fear into the hearts of those men whom he intends to deliver into the power of their Enemies The second said That Pan was an ancient Warrior who invented the ranging of Soldiers in order of Battel and distinguish'd them into Wings call'd by the Latins Cornua whence he was pictur'd with Horns He also first devis'd Strategems so that one day having sent out his Scowts and understood that the Enemies were lodg'd in a desert place full of resounding caverns he order'd his Soldiers that as soon as they approach'd the Enemy they should make a great shout which multiply'd by the Echo of those neighbouring caverns so frighted them that before they could understand what it was they betook themselves to flight conceiving they had to do with a far greater multitude of Enemies than there was Whence the Fable of this God Pan adds that the Goddess Echo was his Mistress From this Groundless Fear as others of the like nature came to be call'd Panick Terrors Such was that which seiz'd the Soldiers of Marc Antony in the War against Mithridates that of the Gauls under Brennus when they were ready to sack the Temple of Delphos that of Hannibal when he approacht the walls of Rome to besiege it and that of Macedonians under their King Perseus who so lost their courage upon sight of an Eclipse of the Moon that it was easie for the Romans to overcome them The Third said That Plutarch in his Treatise of Isis and Oâ—â—ris relates another cause of this Appellation namely That when the latter of them reign'd in Aegypt Typhon surpris'd him by a wile and cast him in a chest into Nilus which News arriving amongst the Pans and Satyrs it put them into an astonishment from which all other sudden frights took their name But leaving apart conjectures of words let us consider the thing and examine Whether it be not a mistake to think that there can be terrors without any cause I think There cannot because 't is as true in Moral as in Natural Philosophy That nothing produceth nothing But as an even balance is sway'd either way by the least blast and the cause being imperceptible seems to incline of it self so when Men are ready for a battel and every one thinks of the doubtful event thereof to himself the least external cause hapning to make never so little impression upon their Spirits whilst they are in this balance is enough to move them either way the first object that occurs yea the least word being of great efficacy And because Fear is found more universally imprinted in Mens minds than Courage hence there needs less subject to produce it than to animate them Thus at the battel of Montcontour this single word Save the Princes spoken either accidentally or by design made them lose the day Thistles being mistaken for Lances gave a great terror to a whole Army and an Ass or a Cow in the Trenches hath sometimes given an Alarm to considerable Garrisons The Fourth said That Fear caus'd in an Enemy being one of the surest means to conquer him Generals have not been more careful to animate their own Souldiers than to terrifie their Enemies even by vain affrightments as showts extravagant arms and habits For this reason the Germans were wont to paint their Faces with several colours that they might seem terrible some think our Poictevins had their name of Pictons from this custom So Gideon by Gods command employ'd Trumpets and earthen Pitchers with fire in them to terrifie the Amalekites Yet none of these Inventions no more than that of Elephants Chariots of fire and other Machins can cause a Panick Terror because it ceases to bear that name when 't is found to have some manifest cause So that to ask Whence Panick Fear proceeds is to ask What is the cause of that which hath none If there be any I
CL. Whether Alterations of States have natural Causes 195 CONFERENCE CLI Which is more healthful To become warm by the Fire or by Exercise 198 CONFERENCE CLII. Whether Wine helps or hinders Digestion and why 201 CONFERENCE CLIII Why 't is colder at Day-break than any other time of the Night or Day 203 CONFERENCE CLIV Whence the whiteness of Snow proceeds 206 CONFERENCE CLV Whether Courage be natural or acquir'd 209 CONFERENCE CLVI Whether Men not having learn'd of others would frame Language to themselves 112 CONFERENCE CLVII Whether is better to guard the Frontier or carry the VVar into the Enemies Country 215 CONFERENCE CLVIII Whence diversity of Opinions proceeds 218 CONFERENCE CLIX. Why there is more VVind at Sea than at Land 221 CONFERENCE CLIX. Whether it be easier to procure Obedience by Gentleness than by Terrour 224 CONFERENCE CLX VVhether Trading derogate from Gentility 225 CONFERENCE CLXI VVhy the French are so much incensed with the Lie 128 CONFERENCE CLXII VVhy every one thinks himself well enough provided with VVit and some better than others 231 CONFERENCE CLXIII How Animals are bred of Putrefaction 234 CONFERENCE CLXIV Of Zoophytes or Plant-Animals 237 CONFERENCE CLXV Of Trubbs or Truffs and Mushroms 240 CONFERENCE CLXVI Which is to be preferred Company or Solitude 242 CONFERENCE CLXVII Whether Birds or four-footed Animals or Fishes be most Intelligent 245 CONFERENCE CLXVIII What is the cause of the Crisis of Diseases 248 CONFERENCE CLXIX What Bodily Exercise is the most healthful 252 CONFERENCE CLXX Whether Vertue consists in Mediocrity 255 CONFERENCE CLXXI. Whether the Imagination be able to produce and cure Diseases 258 CONFERENCE CLXXII Of Fascination or Bewitching 261 CONFERENCE CLXXIII Of Amulets and whether Diseases are curable by Words Tickets or other things hang'd at the Neck or applyed to the Body of the Diseased 264 CONFERENCE CLXXIV Whether Fruition diminishes Love 266 CONFERENCE CLXXV Whether 't were better to know all that men now know or all that they ignore 269 CONFERENCE CLXXVI Whether Musick doth more hurt or good 272 CONFERENCE CLXXVII Whether Barrenness is most commonly the fault of Husbands or of Wives 275 CONFERENCE CLXXVIII Whether Complaisance proceeds from Magnanimity or Poorness of Spirit 279 Touching the means of re-establishing Commerce 282 CONFERENCE CLXXIX What are the most common Causes of Law-suits and why they are more now than heretofore 288 CONFERENCE CLXXX Whether more hurt or good hath proceeded from sharing the parts of Physick between Physitions Apothecaries and Chirurgions 291 CONFERENCE CLXXXI Whether there be any Real Evil besides Pain 293 CONFERENCE CLXXXII Whether man be most diseas'd of all Creature and why 295 CONFERENCE CLXXXIII Of the Greeness of Plants 298 CONFERENCE CLXXXIV Of the Cold of the middle Region of the Air. 300 CONFERENCE CLXXXV Of the Generation of Males and Females 302 CONFERENCE CLXXXVI Whether the French Tongue be sufficient for learning all the Sciences 304 CONFERENCE CLXXXVII Of diversity of Colours in one and the same Subject 306 CONFERENCE CLXXXVIII Whether we are more perspicacious in the Affairs of others or our own and why 308 CONFERENCE CLXXXIX Of the Original of Mountains 310 CONFERENCE CXC Whence proceed good and bad Gestures Gracefulness and ill Aspects 313 CONFERENCE CXCI. Which is most proper for Study the Evening or the Morning 316 CONFERENCE CXCII Who are the most Ingenious of the World 319 CONFERENCE CXCIII Of the Fraternity of the Rosie-Cross CONFERENCE CXCXIV What Paracelsus meant by the Book M. 326 CONFERENCE CXCV. Of the Art of Raimond Lully 329 CONFERENCE CXCVI. Why a Needle Touch'd by a Loadstone turns towards the North 332 CONFERENCE CXCVII What Sect of Philosophers is most to be follow'd 334 CONFERENCE CXCVIII. Why Mules breed not 336 CONFERENCE CXCIX Of the Mandrake 338 CONFERENCE CC. Of Panick Fear 343 CONFERENCE CCI. Of the Water-drinker of S. Germain's Fair. 345 CONFERENCE CCII. Why dead Bodies bleed in the presence of their Murderers 350 CONFERENCE CCIII Of the Vnicorn 353 CONFERENCE CIV Of Satyrs 357 CONFERENCE CCV Of the Phoenix 360 CONFERENCE CCVI. Of the Sensitive Plants 362 CONFERENCE CCVII. Of the Bezoar 365 CONFERENCE CCVIII Whence proceeds the sudden Death of Men and Animals upon descending into certain Pits 371 CONFERENCE CCIX. Whether a Dead Body can be preserv'd naturally many years 373 CONFERENCE CCX Of the Remora 375 CONFERENCE CCXI. Of Negroes 377 CONFERENCE CCXII. Of Ecstacies 380 CONFERENCE CCXIII. Of the Cock and whether the Lyon be frightned at his Crowing 388 CONFERENCE CCXIV. Of the Sibyls 392 CONFERENCE CCXV Whether of two Bodies of different weight the one descends faster than the other and why 399 CONFERENCE CCXVI Of the Silk-worm 402 CONFERENCE CCXVII Why Ice being harder than Water is yet lighter 406 CONFERENCE CCXVIII Of Masks and whether it be lawful for any to disguise themselves 409 CONFERENCE CCXIX. Of Fables and Fictions and whether their conveniences or inveniences be greater 413 CONFERENCE CCXX VVhether it be better to go to Bed late and rise betimes in the Morning or do the contrary 416 CONFERENCE CCXXI Whether the Child derives more from the Father or the Mother 420 CONFERENCE CCXXII Whether is harder for a Vertuous Man to do that which is Evil or for a Vicious Man to do that which is good 423 CONFERENCE CCXXII Whether a piece of Iron laid upon the Cask prevents Thunder from marring Wine contain'd within it and why 427 CONFERENCE CCXXIV. Of Stage-Plays and whether they be advantageous to a State or not 431 CONFERENCE CCXXV. Whether that Temperament of the Body which conduces most to Health be also the most convenient for the Mind 434 CONFERENCE CCXXVI Whether it be more expedient for a Man to have only one Friend or many 438 CONFERENCE CCXXVII Of the Oracles 442 CONFERENCE CCXXVIII Of the Tingling of the Ears 447 CONFERENCE CCXXIX Of Philtres and whether there be any proper Remedies for the procuring of Love 451 CONFERENCE CCXXX Of Atoms 454 CONFERENCE CCXXXI Whether the King 's Evil may be cur'd by the touching of a Seventh Son and why 458 CONFERENCE CCXXXII Of Conjuration 462 CONFERENCE CCXXXIII Of Natural Magick 465 CONFERENCE CCXXXIV Of the moles and marks appearing in the Face 468 CONFERENCE CCXXXV Of Auguries and Auspices 473 CONFERENCE CCXXXVI Whether those Children who are born with Cawls about their whole or some parts of their Bodies are always fortunate and why 478 CONFERENCE CCXXXVII Of Antiperistasis 482 CONFERENCE CCXXXVIII Of the Sympathetical Powder 486 CONFERENCE CCXXXIX Whether there be any such Creatures as the Ancients conceiv'd the Satyrs to be 489 CONFERENCE CCXL Whether it be better to bury or to burn the bodies of the Dead 493 PHILOSOPHICAL CONFERENCES Part II. CONFERENCE CI. I. Of Sleep and how long it ought to be II. Which is the strongest thing in the World AS Nature is the Principle of Motion so she is also of Rest and Sleep which is the cessation of the actions of an Animal to whom alone it hath been assigned in
one by frequent respiration of a hot and dry Air which she attracted as she put her bread into the Oven and took it out again The leaves roasted under the ashes and apply'd hot with their ashes to the Navil are good for the Wind-collick and other obstructions of the Bowels proceeding from the abovesaid causes especially for crudities of the Stomach The Indian women make use of it to kill worms making their children take a very little quantity of it with Sugar but more safely by applying the leafs to the Navil and adding a very little of the juice in lotions The same apply'd helps the Stone-Collick and is highly advantageous in strangulations of the womb being laid likewise upon the Navil and if Women have their usual swoonings the smoak puff'd into their nostrils fetches them again They also ease the pains of swoln limbs and cold Gowts Scurf Itch Child-blanes and clefts of the heels proceeding from cold are cur'd by being rub'd therewith as also venomous wounds and bitings Whereof the Spaniards bear witness who seizing upon a part of the Indies the Cannibals assaulted them with envenom'd Arrows the wounds whereof they cur'd by sprinkling them with prepar'd Sublimate all their stock whereof being spent the wounded dy'd till it was found that the juice of Tobacco apply'd wrought the same effect Moreover the leaves stop the blood of fresh wounds and agglutinate them The juice heals old Ulcers and prevents Gangreens The Indian Priests observing all these virtues transferr'd them to the Mysteries of their Religion For being interrogated concerning the events of War they suck the smoak of this Herb with long Canes then suffer themselves to fall down and being afterwards awakened relate wonders to their hearers giving them to understand that they have had divine Dreams They make use of it likewise to recover weariness and support hunger burning certain shells and powdering them with equal quantity of these leaves of which they make pills which they lay between the lower lip and the teeth continually sucking their liquor which if it nourish not at least it takes away the sense of the inconveniences of hunger and thirst which is an admirable secret whereby they travel two or three days together Possibly by their example our Sailers and Souldiers who have been at Sea take Tobacco with so much pleasure that since they have once gotten a habit of it they cannot be broken from it by the severest Laws For to alledg the prejudice of excessive taking Tobacco is of no more moment than what should be said against Wine for its abuse it having been said by many That those things must be excellent which are capable of being abus'd and this may always be inferr'd from that immutable practice of Tobacco That there is a great familiarity between it and our Nature since the Grand Signior cannot hinder his Turks from the use of it who nevertheless abstain from Wine The Third said That if ever Pliny's condemning and decrying Drugs and forreign Roots was reasonable it was chiefly at the time when the Trade of the Indies transmitted them to us in Europe and with their use new and unknown Diseases Amongst which Medicaments Tobacco as 't is the most common so 't is the more dangerous in that a false opinion of health and purgation gives it credit although its temperament hot and dry in a high degree renders it not only contrary to young and cholerick people and to the stomach which it provokes to vomiting but by a peculiar malignity 't is an enemy to the Brain causing Stupefaction Vertigo Lethargy and a dulness of all its Powers and by a violent desiccation spoling its natural constitution For 't is so far from dis-inebriating that on the contrary by its sharp and biting vapours it fills the head and intoxicates much more like Opium the herb of which it resembles neither of them serving for any thing but to trouble the Reason upon which account Tobacco is a sworn enemy to Hellebore which every one knows is the remedy for Folly and promotes the good constitution of the Brain As for the evacuation of phlegm for which it is esteem'd besides that 't is a dangerous thing to purge such as are in perfect health as most takers of Tobacco are 't is certain that all sort of smoak is bad for the Brain which it clouds and dulls by stirring the animal Spirits and filling the cavities of its Ventricles which it also infects by its smell and pricks its Membranes by its Acrimony inseparable from every kind of fume it being found that men have had black scirrhous spots in the Meninges produc'd by the vapours of Tobacco they were accustom'd to take which Custom also enuring Nature in that manner to evacuate the pituitous excrements whereof the Brain is never destitute if the use thereof be at any time interrupted great accidents happen by that defluxion which had gotten a long course that way and turn'd the Custom of it into Necessity which use besides being shameful and proper only to Rogues and Robbers whom our Arrests comprise under the name of Takers of Tobacco it seems that the name and effects of this Herb are of as bad an odour as its smoak The Fourth said That the Brain being the source not only of all cold maladies but also of most affections of the Lungs whose scituation and spongy substance makes them the Emunctory of all the superiour Parts whence the Asthma Peripneumonia Empyema Phtisick Cough Orthopnaea and other affections of the Breast caus'd by defluxion of humidity falling from the Brain upon the Lungs Physick hath invented three sorts of Remedies to divert the course of those Excrements namely Errhines Ptarmicks and Apophlegmatisms Errhines compos'd of Rue Gentian Celandine Origanum and other detersive Simples attract the phlegm adhering to the Membranes of the Brain and evacuate it by the Nose Ptarmicks or Sternutatories which are made of the above-mention'd things powder'd or of Pepper and white Hellebore Euphorbium Castoreum and Pyrethrum by their acrimony stimulating the expulsive faculty of the Brain to excretion of the pituitous Excrements which are in its Ventricles Apophlegmatisms us'd either in Masticatories or Gargarisms or by rubbing the palate of the Mouth are made of Mastick roasted Raisins Hyssop Origanum bark of Caper-roots Mustard Turbith and such other things as melt and attenuate phlegm and make it distil down the Palate of the Mouth Now Tobacco may serve for these three Uses being taken either by the Nose or in the Mouth as a Masticatory but not in smoak which is an enemy to the Brain and Spirits Upon the Second Point it was said That Nature having given wild Beasts Horns Claws or Teeth for their defence has yet produc'd Man wholly naked and without any other Arms but those of Reason to shew that being a Reasonable Animal he needed no other arms to decide his Quarrels with his like but Justice and right Reason Nevertheless Necessity having oblig'd him to
remov'd from the place the very next day a great Fire happened in the same City For if every thing below is as that which is above and the effects of inferiour things proceed from the various configuration of the Celestial Bodies as of the different combinations of the Letters of the Alphabet are compos'd infinite Books there may be some proportion and correspondence between those Celestial Figures and such as are made upon fit and suitable materials the knowledg of which sympathetical Correspondences is the true Magick which is by the testimony of J. Picus Mirandula the highest point of humane Knowledg marrying Heaven with Earth as black Magick is detestable shameful and ridiculous The Fifth said That every thing acts in the World by the first or second Qualities or by its Substance whence proceed occult Properties and Sympathies But Talismanical Figures cannot act by any of these ways for 't is certain that they act neither by heat cold hardness softness or such other first or second Quality no more than by their Substance which is different in Talismans of Copper Iron Stone c. Although the Authors of this Art ascribe the same virtue to all provided they be graven with the same Figures and under the same Constellations and Aspects of the Starrs from whom alone they make them derive their strange virtues alledging as a Principle That there is nothing in the World but hath both its Contrary and its Like as well in Heaven as on Earth where we see not only the Marigold and the Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun the Selenotrope that of the Moon the Cock proclaims the approach of the Sun As also on the contrary Dogs commonly run mad in the Dog-days and Lions under the Sign Leo But also some Persons beheld with an evil eye by some Planets others being propitious So to cure hot and dry Diseases they engrave their Talismans under a Constellation contrary to the Evil as cold and moist having regard to the Signs whereunto every Malady and diseas'd Part is referr'd which is an Invention of Paracelsus who fancies Poles a Zenith a Nadir an Equator a Zodiack and other phantastical Figures in our Bodies answering to those of Heaven without the least proof of his sayings Upon the Second Point it was said Since Man is compos'd of Body and Soul the best Life he can lead is that which is most proper for the perfection and good of both Such is the Country-life being accompanied with the Goods of the Body Fortune and the Mind Those of the Body as Health and Strength are possess'd with advantage by Rusticks who know not so much as the Names of Diseases the cause whereof is their Exercise and Labour which dissipates and resolves the humours that produce most Diseases as also the purity of the Air they breathe which is the more healthful in that it hath free motion and is less confin'd for which reason Physitians send their recovering Patients to confirm their Health in the Air of the Country Which also supplies the Goods of Fortune the true and natural Riches to wit the Fruits of the Earth and the Spoils of Animals Gold Silver and other artificial Goods being but imaginary and useless without those first whereunto they are subservient But above all the Goods of the Mind which consist in Knowledg and Virtue the two Ornaments of its two chief Faculties the Understanding and the Will may be acquir'd much more easily in a Country-life in regard of the purer Air which begets like Spirits as these frame purer Species and Phantasms on which depend the actions of the Understanding which besides cannot meditate nor improve without rest and silence scarce found in a civil and tumultuary Life as that in Cities is which hold our Minds as well as Bodies in captivity depriving us of the free aspect of Heaven the rising and setting of the Sun and Stars and of the means of considering the Wonders of God in the production of Flowers Fruits and Plants Hence the Poets feign'd the Muses the Goddesses of the Sciences living in the Mountains of Helicon and in Woods not in the inclosure of Cities where Virtues are also more difficultly practis'd than the Sciences nothing of them being left there but shadows and phantasms which under veils of Dissimulation Hypocrisie Complements and other testimonies of Virtue cover Injustices Sacriledges Impieties and other Crimes unknown in the Country where Simplicity and Innocence are sure tokens of true Virtue which is also better retain'd amongst the Thorns and Sweats of the Country than in the Luxury and Idleness of Cities And if things may be judg'd of by their beginnings the Sacred History tells That Cain the first Murtherer was the first that built a City named Henoch after the Name of his Son as a little after did the first Tyrant of the World Nimrod who built Niniveh On the contrary all holy Personages have lead a Country-life Adam was a Husband-man and so was Cain as long as he continu'd in the state of Innocence which as soon as he lost he desir'd to become a Burgess Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs his Sons were Shepherds as also the Kings Saul and David and the Prophets Amos Elisha and many others in imitating whose example we cannot erre The Second said That Man being a sociable and political Animal the habitation of Cities is as consentaneous to his Nature as the Country-life is repugnant to the same And therefore Men had no sooner discover'd the inconveniences of the Rustick-life but they unanimously conspir'd to build Cities to the end to supply one anothers Necessities and defend themselves from wild Beasts and their Enemies to whose fury they were expos'd before they liv'd in some Town which is a Sacred Society or Unity of Citizens all aspiring to the conservation of the State to the maintaining of the Laws and Justice and to the publick Ornament and Glory making Arts and Disciplines flourish and procuring Safety to all People by the distribution of Rewards to Virtue and Punishment to Vices which have not their effect but in publick For our Lives would not differ from those of Brutes if we were oblig'd to dwell in Dens or wander up and down Woods as the Barbarians of the new World do whose Brutality Irreligion Cruelty Ignorance and Misery compar'd with the Politeness Devotion Humanity Knowledg and Happiness of others sufficiently manifest what difference there is between a City and a Country-life CONFERENCE CIX I. Of Volcano's or Subterranean Fires II. Which Age is most desirable THe effects of Volcano's and Subterranean Fires are no less manifest than their cause is unknown although the desire of teaching us the same occasion'd the death of Pliny by haying too neer approach'd the Fires of Mont Gibel or Aetna and made Empedocles cast himself head-long into them But the former did not attain it and the latter left us nothing but his Pantofles The Artifice of Man hath indeed excavated the
that as Plumeor Stone-allume is an eternally incombustible Wiek provided it be supply'd with new Oyl when the former is spent this Earth may do the like Unless we had rather that wise Nature dispenses combustible matter in the bellies of Mountains after the manner of Vitruvius's his Lamps which need filling but once a year and those Water-Receptacles for Birds which are supply'd with fresh as fast as the former Water is spent Or else that Nature excepting the extraordinary eruptions which seldome happen to these flammivomous Mountains and then only when the Fire cannot get issue but by violence makes what the curious often aspire to an inextinguishable Fire or perpetual Light by resolving again into oyly and combustible matter that which was evaporated by Inflammation as Water elevated in vapour by heat falls down again in the same form The Architect Nature finding Cavities great enough in those vast Mountains to facilitate what Art finds impossible by reason of the smalness of Vessels which extinguish Fire when it hath not Air or suffer its Matter to exhale when it hath although S. Austin and Lodovicus Vives make mention the former of a Lamp in the Temple of Venus which could not be extinguish'd or consum'd though neither Oyl nor Wiek were put to it and the latter of another burning Lamp found in a Sepulchre where it had been fifteen hundred years but upon admission of Air forthwith went out Although without recurring to this subtilty that of Fire and its activity is sufficient to attract or fetch in its sulphureous food which being only an excrement of the Earth and like the soot of our Chimneys is found every where but especially in Mines which are repair'd in less time than is believ'd and whose various qualities make the variety of these Subterraneous Fires of their duration continuity and interval which some have compar'd to Intermitting Fevers excited in our Bodies by an extraneous heat which holds the same place in us as Fire doth in the Earth Upon the Second Point it was said That Age is the measure of the Natural Mutations to which Man is subject by the Principles of his Being and which differ according to every ones Nature some being Puberes having a Beard and gray Hairs and such other tokens sooner than others according to the diversity of their first conformation whence arises that of their Division Aristotle following Hippocrates divides them into Youth Middle-age and Old-age that is to say the Beginning Middle and end Or according to Galen into Infancy Man-hood and Old-age According to most into Adolescence Youth Age of Consistence and Old-age Adolescence comprehends Infancy which reaches to the seventh year the Age of Puerility to the fourteenth Puberty to the eighteenth and that call'd by the general name Adolescence to the twenty fifth Youth which is the flower of Age reaches from twenty five to thirty five Man-hood and Consistence from thirty five to fourty eight when Old-age begins which is either green middle or decrepit These four Ages are the four Wheels of our Life whose Mutations they mark out The first next the primordia's of generation is hot and moist symbolising with Blood the second hot and dry with Choler the third cold and dry with Melancholy the fourth cold and moist with Phlegm which being contrary to the primogenial humidity leads to death Now if it be true as 't is said That Life is a Punishment and a Summary of Miseries Old-age as neerest the haven and end of Infelicities is the most desirable Moreover being more perfect by experience and alone fit to judg of the goodness of Ages which it hath run through we must refer our selves to the goodness of its judgment as well in this as in all other Points The Second said Since to live is to act the most perfect and agreeable of all Ages of Life is that in which we best exercise the functions of Body and Mind namely Youth which alone seems fit to dispute the Prize with Old-age not only in regard of the health and vigour of the Body wherein it surpasses that declining feeble Age but also of the actions of the Mind which is much more lively in young inventive and industrious Persons than in the aged whose Spirit wears and grows worse with the Body which hath given place to that most true Proverb That Old-men are twice Children For 't is to give Wisedom a shameful Extraction and to make it the issue of Infirmity to call that ripe which is rotten and to believe that good counsels proceed only from defect of natural heat since according to his judgment who hath best decypher'd Wisdom this Old-age traces more wrincles in our Minds than Faces and there are few Souls which by growing old become not sowr and rancid and acquire not many vices and ill habits of which Covetousness alone inseparable from Old-age and an Argument of weakness of Mind in heaping up with so much solicitude what must soon be parted with is not much less prejudicial to the State than all the disorders of Youth But if the Chief Good consists in the Sciences the Cause of Young-men is infallible for acuteness of Wit strength of Phancy and goodness of Memory which wholly abandons Old-men and ability to undergo pains and watchings must contribute to their acquisition And if it consist in the secret delight we take in exercising virtuous Actions Young-men who according to Chancellour Bacon excel in Morality will carry it above Old it being certain That the best actions of our Lives are perform'd between twenty and thirty or thereabouts which was the Age at which Adam was created in Paradise as our Saviour accomplish'd the Mystery of our Redemption at the Age of thirty three years which shall be likewise the Age at which the Blessed shall rise to Glory in which every one shall enjoy such a perfect Youth as we ascribe to Angels and put off Old-age which not much differing from Death may like it be term'd the Wages of Sin since had our first Parent persisted in Innocence we should have possess'd a perpetual Youth Moreover 't is at this Age that the greatest Men have appear'd Few Old Conquerours have been seen if any he hath this of Alexander That he aspires to the Conquest of another World not having long to live in this Wherefore instead of pretending any advantage over other Ages Old-men ought to be contented that we use them not as those of Cea and the Massagetes did who drown'd them or the Romans who cast them from a Bridg into Tyber thinking it a pious act to free them from life whose length displeas'd the Patriarchs the Scripture saying That they died full of or satiated with days The Third said That the Innocence of Children should make us desire their Age considering that our Lord requires us to be like them that we may enter into his Kingdom Moreover Nature unable to perpetuate Infancy hath found no sweeter Anodyne for the miseries
the prevailing Quality bears sway and makes a Temperament hot cold dry or moist In the second these Qualities being alter'd the Elementary Forms which were contrary only by their adversary Qualities unite and conspire into one particular Form the Principle of Occult Properties Sympathies and Antipathies according as their Forms are found Friends or Enemies Thus in all Medicaments there is a temperament of Qualities which is the cause that Pepper is hot Lettuce cold c. and a temperament of Forms which makes Agaric purge Phlegm Sena Melancholy Rhubarb Choler some Drugs Cardiacal others Cephalical or Splenical From the mixture of these Forms arises the action of Antidotes and Poyson and not from that of the Elementary Qualities although they accompany their Forms being their Servants and Vicegerents Otherwise did Poysons kill by excess of heat or cold Pepper and Cucumber would be Poyson as well as Opium and Arsenick and a Glass of Cold Water would be the counter-poyson of Sublimate And nevertheless there are many Alexipharmaca which agree in first qualities with the Poysons they encounter Upon the Second Point it was said Homer had reason to set two Vessels neer Jupiters Throne one full of Bitterness the other of Sweetness wherewith he compounded all the Affairs of the World Since by these contrarieties of Good and Evil Man's Life and Nature it self is divided For if the Principle of Good consist in Entity according to Aristotle and Evil in Non-Entity Privation which is the Principle of Non-entity â—nd consequently of Evil is as well rank'd amongst Natural Principles as Matter and Form which are the Foundations of Entity and Good And we see Corruptions are as common as Generations and Darkness as Light But if we consider Evil in the vitiosity of Entity then according to the Platonists who call what is material and corruptible Evil what is spiritual and incorruptible Good Man consisting both of a material and spiritual Substance will be the Center where all Goods and Evils will terminate In which respect he will be like the Tree of Knowledg of Good and Evil plac'd by himself in Paradise or like that to which David compares him planted by the brink of Waters which are Afflictions For his Branches and upper Parts being deck'd with Flowers Leaves and Fruits which are the three sorts of Goods which attend him his Flowers whose whiteness denotes the Innocence of his first Age are the Goods of the Body which pass away with his Spring His Leaves whose Verdure is the Symbol of Hope which never leaves him till death being fading and subject to be dispers'd by storms are the Goods of Fortune And his Fruits are the Goods of the Mind Knowledg and Virtue which are more savory and nutritive than the rest But if we behold the Roots of this Tree wherewith 't is fasten'd to the Earth and which are the original of his Evils some sticking to that Stock of Adam the source of his Original Sin which sends forth a thousand Suckers of all sorts of Vices and Passions others to that Clay from whence he was extracted and which is the Principle of all bodily Infirmities we shall find that his good things are external and communicated from elsewhere but his evil things are internal and natural and consequently more communicative For as to Vices the Evils of the Soul bad Examples corrupt more than virtuous edifie And for those of the Body Diseases are more easily gotten than cur'd and Health is not communicable to others but Epidemical Diseases are A bad Eye a tainted Grape and a rotten Apple infects its neighbour but by parity of Reason might as well be preserv'd by it The Evils of others not on'y do us ill by Compassion which is a sort of Grief but also their happiness causes in us Jealousie and Envy the cruelest of all Evils Besides Good is rare and consequently not communicative and Possession fills but satisfies not Nor is Metaphysical Good communicable being an abstracted not a real Quality And if Evil arise from the least defect of a thing and Good only from its absolute perfection then since nothing is absolutely perfect Good is not communicated to any one thing here below but on the contrary Evil is found in all The Second said That which hath no Being cannot be communicated But Evil is not any thing real and hath not any Efficient Cause as was held by the Manichees and Priscillianists condemn'd for establishing two Principles one of Good the other of Evil independent one on the other For since Good consists in the integrity and perfection of Parts and of whatever is requisite to the Nature of a Thing Evil is nothing but a Privation a defect and want of what is requisite to its perfection And being a thing is communicated according as it hath more or less of essence Good which is convertible with Being must be more communicative than Evil which is only a Being imperfect God who possesses Beeing and Goodness primarily communicates himself infinitely as doth also Light the most perfect of all created Substances Moreover the Nature of Good consisting in Suitableness and Appetibility by reason of Contraries that of Evil consists in Unfitness and Aversion and if Evil be communicated 't is always under the mask and appearance of some Good which alone is communicative by nature The Third said Good is more difficult than Evil which is commonly attended with Profit and Delight and consequently more communicative For Nature having implanted in us a love of our selves doth also instigate us to seek after all means that may tend as well to the preservation of our Nature as to our Contentment namely Riches Honour Beauty and all other Goods either real or imaginary which not being in our power but almost all in others hands cannot be much desir'd without sin nor possess'd without injustice much less acquir'd by lawful ways much rarer and longer than the unlawful and bad which are many and easie and consequently more frequent CONFERENCE CXII I. Why Animals cry when they feel Pain II. Whether it be expedient to have Enemies AS Speech was given Man to express the thoughts and conceptions of his Mind so was Voice to all Animals to signifie the motions and inclinations of their Nature towards good and evil But with this difference That Voice is a Natural Sign having affinity with the thing it signifies which Speech hath not being an Artificial Sign depending on the will and institution of its Author Hence it comes that there is great variety of Languages and Dialects among Men but one sole fashion of forming the same Voice amongst Animals who being more sensible of Pain than of Pleasure the former destroying Nature the latter giving only a surplusage of Goodness when the Evil is so great and pressing that they cannot avoid it impotence and weakness makes them send forth Cries to implore the help and assistance of their Fellows For Nature having imprinted in all Creatures a Knowledg of Good
that they oblige us to stand upon our guard to order our demeanour well and so to frame our Lives that they may have no hold against us For as Friendship is the Parent of Confidence and Liberty this of Negligence So Enmity begets Diffidence and this Circumspection with a great desire of Virtue and shame of Vice whose turpitude makes us blush more in the presence of an Enemy than of a Friend who being our other Self complies with our humours and inclinations And as Natural Agents are more vigorous in presence of their Contraries whence Fire scorches more in Winter than in Summer so the presence of Enemies redoubles our strength and courage their neighbour-hood obliges us to have always our Arms in our hands and keep good Guard which made Cato declaim against those who raz'd the Cities of Carthage and Numantia both Enemies to Rome The Second said That if a Man be vicious 't is more expedient that he have Enemies than Friends these too easily adhering to his debauches but those withdrawing him from them either by reproaches or by the example of a contrary life If he be virtuous his Enemies make his Virtue shine forth whilst it serves him for a defence and apology against all their accusations and calumnies and he finds it his interest to continue his virtuous Practises that he may still refute them whereas the flatteries and compliances of his Friends insensibly corrupt him Besides seeing a virtuous Man cannot be said absolutely perfect but only to have fewer defects than another his dissembling or flattering Friends sometimes know them not but an Enemy takes notice of them and blazing them abroad gives him warning to correct them Yea it seems a sign of a virtuous Man to have Enemies For besides that Virtue hath been always envy'd and hated and the higher a Man is in merit and dignity above others he hath the more Enemies resemblance of Manners begets Friendship and disparity Enmity and more without comparison are vicious than virtuous But the vicious being unable to love any but those like themselves hate all who follow not their example as the virtuous do not and so have the greatest part of the World against them The Third said That Enmities can produce no good since either Vice or Malice or Ignorance is the cause it not being possible but either he that is hated must be vicious or else they that hate him malicious or ignorant For as Friendship is founded upon and cannot subsist without Virtue so neither can Enmity without the Vice and Malice of him that hates or his that is hated or both together And as the Effects of Amity are Union Concord Security and Peace so those of Enmity are Division Discord Diffidence Suspicion Treachery Hatred and other such Effects noxious not only to a private Person who cannot draw any benefit from what tends only to his ruine as all Hatred doth but also prejudicial to the Publick which is totally destroy'd by Enmity which breaks the bonds of Civil Society On the other side If all were Friends one man would be a God to another as that Ancient said and all men concurring together by mutual help to the accomplishment of one anothers designs there would be no more difficulty in Affairs because no opposition and the World would be nothing but a harmony of favourable Successes Contrarily 't is Enmity makes one man a Woolf to another a Stone of offence and the Daemon of his bad fortune For the benefit of understanding our own Vices by our Enemies reproaches is not to be compar'd to that which we receive from the good counsels of Friends who are better qualifi'd for redressing our imperfections because converse affords the means to know them whereas the rude censures and affronts of an Enemy being never taken in good part cannot any wise contribute to the correction of our Manners A wise and virtuous Man who voluntarily endeavours to practise Virtue in all occurrences finds ways enough to do it without waiting to be constrain'd thereunto by the injuries and censures of Enemies But the vitious will draw nothing from them but fewel to his rancour and revenge without being instructed concerning his faults by the mouth of those whom he utterly disbelieves However we must draw as much profit as we can from our Enemies and 't is the only comfort can be had against Hatred to make use of it as an Antidote against its own Poyson But then as 't would be more expedient to have no Griefs or Poysons than to be at the trouble of finding Anodynes and Counter-poysons so we may be allow'd to derive some remedy from Enmities against their Mischiefs and make as much profit of Vice as 't is possible but 't would be expedient to have neither Enemies nor Vices The Fourth said That Nature subsists only by Contrariety That of the First Qualities is the cause of all the Generations of Mixts in the great World Man's Life lasts only so long as the Natural Heat acts upon the Radical Moisture when their combate is ended he must necessarily die His Understanding hath no better means to obtain Truth than by contrariety of Opinions whereof Identity is as disagreeable to the Mind as 't is to Nature But his Will hath no more powerful Means to attain to Virtue than Resistance which sharpens the Courage and enkindles Resoltion Therefore God has given Man a domestick Enemy the Sensitive Appetite that it being continually at war with the Will might serve to exercise it and render its Victories more glorious the Will as well as the Understanding growing rusty when they want exercising which whets and strengthens them both Hence S. Paul was not heard when he pray'd thrice to be delivered from the importunity of his Enemy God judging it not expedient for his good and having also permitted Heresies in the Church which the same Apostle saith are necessary to the end to prove the Faith of its Members CONFERENCE CXIII I. Of the Iris or Rain-bow II. Whether the Reading of Books is a fitter way for Learning than Vocal Instructions 'T Was not without reason that the Poets feign'd Iris to be the Daughter of Thaumas or Thaumasia that is to say of Admiration thereby intimating our not knowing its cause For Wonder is the Off-spring of Ignorance Amongst many other things Three we find to admire in it its Matter Form and Colours It s Matter is not a moist Cloud as most imagine for besides that then we should see Rain-bows more frequently than we do a Cloud cannot reflect the Sun-beams with that variety or medley which we observe therein For there would be but one colour if the Cloud were diaphanous and otherwise it will be black and dark 'T is not therefore in a Cloud that the Rain-bow is form'd but in the falling drops of Rain as we see some Fountains form one in the Air by the ejaculation of the Water struck with the Sun-beams as also by the spurting of Water out
of the Days comprehended in half a year And the obliquity of the Horizon is the cause that these parallels are cut by it unequally Otherwise if these parallels were not different from the Equator or although different if they were cut equally by the Horizon as it happens in a Right Sphere the Horizon which is a great Circle passing by the Poles of these parallels which are the same with those of the World both the Days and Nights would be equal so that where the Sphere is not inclin'd as in the Right and Parallel Spheres there is no inequality of Days nor consequently of Climate so call'd from its Inclination but only in the oblique Sphere 'T is defin'd a Region of Earth comprehended between two circles parallel to the Equator in which there is the difference of half an hour in the longest days of the year It encompasses the Terrestrial Globe from East to West as a Zone doth which differs from it only as the Zone is broader whence there are many Climats in the same Zone The Ancients having regard only to so much of the Earth as they believ'd inhabited made but seven Climats which they extended not beyond the places where the longest days are 16 hours and denominated from the most remarkable places by which they made them pass as the first Northern Climat was call'd Dia Meroes hy Meroe which they began at 12 deg 43 min. from the Aequinoctial where the longest day hath 12 hours three quarters and which at present is the end of our first Climat and beginning of the second This first Climat passes by Malaca a City of the East-Indies and begins at 4 deg 18 min. Its middle from which all Climats are reckon'd hath 8 deg 34 min. and its end 12 deg 43 min. The other six Climats of the Ancients pass'd by Siene Alexandria Rhodes Rome Pontus Euxinus and the River Boristhenes Ptolomy reckons twenty one as far as the Island Thule which lies in 63 deg of Northern Latitude Our modern Astronomers make twenty four from the Aequinoctial to the Polar Circles in each of which Climats the longest day of Summer encreases half an hour above twelve according as they approach nearer those Circles beyond which to the Poles of the World they place six more not distinguish'd by the variation of half an hour but of 30 days So that there is in all sixty Climats 30 Northern and as many Southern each comprehended by two Parallels which Climats are easily found by doubling the excess whereby the longest day surpasses twelve hours the Product being the Climat of the place As if you know the longest Summer day at Paris to be 16 hours double 4 the excess above 12 and you will have 8 which is the Climat of Paris and so of others And though there be the same reason of Seasons and other variations in the Southern and Northern Climats yet since experience shews us that those of the South are not inhabited beyond the 8th which is about the Cape of Good Hope at the farthest point of Africa beyond which no Inhabitants are as yet discover'd it may seem that the diversity of Climats is not alone sufficient for long or short life but there are other causes concurring thereunto The Second said That since a thing is preserv'd by that which produces it the Sun and Stars which concur to the generation of all living Creatures must also contribute to their preservation and continuance in life which being maintain'd by use of the same things variety and change though delightful yet being the most manifest cause of brevity of life that Climat which is most constant and least variable will be the properest for longaevity and so much the more if it suits with our nature such is the first Climat next the Aequinoctial where things being almost always alike bodies accustom'd thereunto receive less inconvenience thereby then under others whose inequalities and irregularities produce most diseases The natural purity of the Air promoted by the breath of a gentle East Wind there reigning continually and the want of vapours and humidities which commonly infect our Air conduce greatly to the health of the Inhabitants also when the dryness and coldness of their temper makes longer-liv'd as appears by Ravens and Elephants the most melancholy of all Animals which are common in these parts where they live above 300 years Moreover Homer testifies that Memnon King of Aethiopia liv'd 500 years which by the report of Xenophon was the common age of most men of the same Country where Francis Alvarez affirms in our time that he saw lusty men at 150 years of age and that in Aegypt which lies near it there are more old men then in any place of the World and that women are so fruitful there that they bring forth three or four children at a time rather through the goodness of the Climat then any nitrous vertue that is in the waters of Nilus Hence possibly most Doctors place the Terrestial Paradise under the Aequinoctial and the cause of our first Fathers longaevity who having been created under this Climat seem to have lost of its duration proportionably as they remov'd from the same Northwards whence all evil comes and towards the Zones wrongfully call'd Temperate since more subject to alteration then that call'd Torrid by the Ancients who thought it unhabitable by reason of extream heat although the continual Flowers and Fruits wherewith the always verdant Trees are laden testifie the contrary The Third said Since Heaven is immutable and always like to it self the Earth and Elements alone subject to change the length and shortness of Life seems not to depend on Heaven but on Earth and the several dispositions of our Bodies and the whole World being Man's Country there is no place in it but is equally proper for his habitation provided he be born there because the Air he breathes and the Food he eats from his Nativity altering his Body at length make his temper suitable to that of the place of his Education which therefore he loves above any other The Fourth said That Heaven remaining it self immutable is nevertheless the cause of motions and mutations here below its light producing different effects in the Earth according as it is receiv'd the most sensible whereof are heat dryness and other qualities which diversifie the Seasons and Zones of which the two temperate especially the Northern seems most habitable and proper for longaevity 'T is also the most populous and its Natives are not only the most healthy and lusty but also the most refin'd and civiliz'd of all others Now of the Climats of this Zone the eighth wherein Paris lyes seems to me the healthiest of all as well for pureness of Air as all other Causes The Fifth said That the goodness of Climats depends not so much upon Heaven as the situation of each place in reference to the Winds of which the Southern being the most unhealthy therefore Towns defended by
Land had no doubt experienc'd the michiefs of that unfaithful Element the cruellest whereof is the Scurvy a Disease complicated with several others and whose chief symptoms are the ulceration and swelling of the Gums and Legs with pains over all the Body caus'd by the impurity and malignity of the Air. But the most frequent is vomiting caus'd by the sole agitation and violence of the Air. For our aerious Spirits not only receive the qualities of the air we breathe but also follow its temper and motion as is seen by the Head-ach seising those that are beaten by winds in the Country and by the seeming turning of their heads who attentively behold the circumgyration of a Wheel or some other Body So the Air at Sea being much agitated puts in motion the Spirits which are of the same nature and these being stirr'd set the humours on work which incommoding the parts are by them driven out by vomits and other ejections according to every one's temper and propensity For the cholerick and broad-breasted vomit more easily and successfully then the phlegmatick and narrow-breasted whose Organs of respiration are not sufficiently free Whereunto also the season of the year contributes for Summer provokes vomit more then Winter when the humours being more heavy rather tend downwards But especially Custom is considerable herein which renders those that go frequently to Sea not obnoxious to its inconveniences The Fourth said That the Earth consists of three substances one Unctuous which is the inflammable moisture call'd by the Chymists Sulphur another Cinereouâ— which they call the Faeces or Caput mortuum the third humid and incombustible which they divide into Mercury and Salt this latter again into Salt-nitre and Vitriol of which the Sea being full the same is communicated to the first Region of the Air contiguous to the Waters and insinuating it self into our Bodies by inspiration produces the same effects therein that it doth taken in substance four Grains of which is a sufficient Vomit Whereto also helps the gentle agitation of the waves which makes it penetrate the examples of others vomiting and especially the fear commonly incident to such as were never upon the Sea before who are most obnoxious to this trouble For that Passion so constringes the whole Body especially the inward parts that it weakens and relaxes the Nerves especially the Fibres which keep the parts in a just tenor and so the oblique Fibres and orbicular Muscles which serve to retain them being languid suffer the juices and humours to pass out The same fear which causes relaxation of the Sphincter Ani Vesicae relaxing the Muscles which serve to open and close the upper Orifice of the Ventricle Hence fear is commonly accompani'd with the pain of this part whose sense being very exquisite is the cause that the Vulgar call it The pain of the Heart which also for the same reason happens to such as look down upon low places CONFERENCE CXIX Of Love by Inclination or Sympathy 'T Is not only amongst the Poets that Love is blind the obscurity of this causes evidencing him no less so amongst the Philosophers who assign two sorts of it one of Knowledge which tends to a good known the other of Inclination whereby we love without knowing why Indeed there is no love without ground and some sort of knowledge but yet when the cause obliging us to love is manifest it makes the former kind of love when obscure the latter whereof we have many examples in nature not only in the Symbolical qualities of the Elements Electrical and Magnetical attractions of Stones particular alliances of Metals and all the amities of Plants and Trees as of the female Palm which is said to lean towards the male and those which are found amongst Animals but especially in the particular inclinations of some Persons to others unknown and void of all recommendations to qualifie them for the same and the emotions some have felt both in Soul and Body at the first sight of their unknown Parents as also of a contrary effect when a dead body bleeds upon the presence of its Murderer which is a testimony of an antipathetical hatred contrary to the abovesaid Love which we find in our selves almost upon all occurrences as when two equally strangers play at Tennis we wish that one may win and the other lose For the first motions of Love as well as of all other Passions are not in our power and afford not the Mind time to deliberate and make reflexion upon them Hence oftentimes Anger Sadness Panick fright and such other Passions seise upon us without cause and Love doth the like frequently without any apparent reason Yea we may say there is no Love of Knowledg but what took its first rise from that of Inclination which presently makes us enamor'd of the proportions of a Face which displeases another that understands the same as well as we but without being any way affected therewith because he finds not in it that correspondence and sympathetical resemblance that produces a Love of Inclination which may also arise without any knowledge as in that blind man who lov'd a Lass whom he had never seen as also in Petrarch who made so many Verses upon his Lawra whom he could never behold The cause whereof I should attribute to the power of the Imagination which fancies somthing of loveliness where there is none or else to the sole action of the Will which not able to remain neuter between love and hatred since its action is to will and to will is to love when it meets no cause of hatred in an object loves it and hates it when it finds nothing amiable therein For if you assign the reason of this love to the transpiration of Spirits issuing out of the lov'd person's body their substance is too volatile to act so far off and their issuing being never alike because the pores of the skin are more stopt at one time then at another this love would be remarkably alter'd every moment Besides we many times love by an inclination an absent person for his merit and many have been enamour'd of Beauties at the first sight of their Pictures but love was never produc'd between two blind persons notwithstanding any emission of sympathetical Spirits Moreover 't is the Species and not the Spirits that are receiv'd by our Senses and so none should ever love those they had not seen but by a Prospective-glass The Second said That it imports not much to the causing of love whether the object be really or only imaginarily good and indeed our minds seem to interess themselves more in the pursute and preservation of the latter then the former which maintains it self by its proper worth Wherefore if Love of Inclination presuppose goodness in the object the same must be apprehended either by the Imagination or by some other Faculty to which it must therefore be approximated either immediately by it self or by it self So the
contrary namely Unite the Four Humours in the Veins though different in nature instead of segregating them for in this Case Heat acts not with full authority but as the Soul's Officer following her intentions And the reason is because these four Humours being ingredients into the Nativity of Man they must necessarily pass into his nourishment which they cannot do without being mingled together But when the Blood is out of the Veins then the Heat disengag'd from the Soul's jurisdiction disgregates and separates all four making the Choler float uppermost the Phlegm next then the Blood and lowest of all Melancholy as the dregs Amongst Souls there is the same order of Superiority The Sensitive makes the Vegetative obey it as appears by this that if after meat the Imagination attend much to an object the Concoction of the Food is retarded because all the Faculties of the Soul being united in their Root and Essence of the Soul when she sets her self much upon one object she leaves the other inferiour powers idle they not being able to work but as the Soul their principle employs them Now this premis'd I say when a breeding Woman hath a longing for any thing this desir'd thing is imprinted strongly in the Phancy and this imprinting being made in the Brain the Spirits which flow from thence carry a copy thereof with them For as an intire Looking-glass represents but one Image but every piece of a broaken one hath its whole Pourtrait because the Intentional Species or Images of things though divisible by reason of their subject are yet in themselves formally indivisible being Forms without Matter and consequently indivisible Division proceeding from Quantity a concomitant of Matter So those Spirits which stream from the Brain though they leave there the image of the desir'd thing yet withall they carry the same image with them as being portions of the substance wherein it is engraven and running to the place where the Foetus is form'd by reason of the union of its Umbilical Vessels with those of the Mother they arrive at the Infant and imprint the Characters they bring upon it the Vegetative and Plastick or Formative Vertue suffering it self to be over-rul'd by the Sensitive as this is by the Imaginative and this again by the other superiour powers When the teeming Woman touching her self in any part the Spirits run thither from the Brain either by reason of the touch or the motion both depending upon the Animal Spirits but finding the Mother's flesh too hard and disproportinate to their effect and missing their blow they go to give it upon the tenderer flesh of the Child And as in Generation the Spirits of all the parts of the Body accur to the place where the Seed is receiv'd there to engrave the Characters of the parts whence they flow which afterwards serve for the Formative Vertue every one having his task to make the part from which it issu'd so the Mother's Spirits keep the same course and rule towards the Embryo so that those which serv'd to the Mother's touch go to find that same place in the Child's Body there to mark the Image which they brought from the Brain Nature finding ways for her Intention where none appear The Second said The impotence of that Sex and their weakness of Mind evidenc'd by the violence of all their Passions which know no mediocrity is one of the principal causes of the impetuosity of their desires Now the Species of the thing desir'd being in the Imagination it excites the Appetite which desir'd it this the motive Faculty which employs the Animal Spirits to execute the commands of the Faculties by whom it is set on work And as the Vertues and Images of things generated here below by the heat and influence of the Stars are receiv'd in the Air which consigns them to the Earth so those Spirits receive the Species and Images whereof the brain is full and being directed by the Imagination to the Womb which hath great communication with the Brain by means of the nerves of the sixt Pair as appears by the effects of Odors upon that part there they retrace and imprint upon the Child the Images wherewith they are laden For if it be true that the Imagination can act beyond its Subject as Estriches and Tortoises are said to hatch their Eggs with their Eyes and that Hens hatch Chickens of the colour of such cloths as are laid before them whilest they are sitting much more may the Imagination of a Woman represent upon the tender Fruit in her womb the Images of things which she passionately desires and this is no more strange than the common observation of People falling sick and recovering again meerly by Fancy The Third said That the images of things desired are in the Spirits just as those of sensible objects are in the Air which is full of them But as these that they may be seen must be terminated by a smooth and opake body so that those which are in the spirits may be express'd they must be terminated by a soft tender and capable body as a child's is in the first months of his conformation during which alone he is susceptible of these impressions which are only of things edible and potable being the Child then endu'd only with sensitive Life cannot be affected but by things serving to the Animal Life as aliments are which besides are ordinarily and most ardently desir'd by breeding Women those that long for chalk coals and other impurities being unhealthy and distemper'd Now to give account why the Grapes Mulberries Strawberries Goose-berries and other Fruits delineated upon our bodies ripen and change colour at the same time as the true fruits upon the earth do I shall not recurr to the Stars or Talismanical Figures but more probably to that Universal Spirit which causeth the same fermentation in the spirits of our bodies as in Wine and the Vine when it is in its sap and flower and in Pork or Venison when Hogs and Deer are salt mezled or go to rut The fourth said That some of these Marks adhere to particular Families So the family of Seleucus had an Anchor upon the thigh in Greece some were distinguish'd by a Lance a Crevish a Star c. which marks as Warts and Moles proceed from the Formative Vertue in the seed which containing the Idea of all the parts expresses them to the life in the child Other sorts of Marks are not ordinary but fortuitous and depend upon the Imagination alone which employs the spirits which are common both to the Mother and Child by the Umbilical Vessels and have the same motions so that when the Woman scratches her self in any part of her body the spirits having a like motion are carri'd towards that part and at the same time towards that correspondent part in the child's body whose tenderness is alone susceptible of the image wherewith they are impregnated and which is never to be removed as being from the first
pores being more open cannot retain those volatile substances So that had the Fat less heat as they have not for plenty of fat argues plenty of blood the purer and more aiery part whereof distilling like dew through the coats of the Vessels and passing through the Muscles when it comes to the Membranes is by them condens'd into that whitish substance rather by their density and natural property then by their coldness yet this Heat being better dispens'd and less alter'd in the Fat then in the Lean must consequently cause fewer diseases and last longer The Third said Life is the continuance of Heat in Humidity not aqueous and excrementitious as that of fat people is but oleaginous and aerial and the longer this Heat subsists therein the longer doth life last Now it continues longer in the Fat whose more open pores let out the fuliginous excrements rais'd by Heat which in fat bodies whose passages are stopt by the coldness or clamminess of pituitous humors stagnate and choke the heat like fire that wants free transpiration so necessary to life that it cannot subsist a moment without this action whereby the soul attracts air in at all parts of the body especially the mouth for refreshing and ventilating the heat and recruiting the spirits and by the same passages emits the fuliginosities necessarily following all consumption of humidity by Heat Which causes of Death being internal and consequently necessary and inevitable are much more considerable then the external whereto lean people are subject and which may be more easily avoided and remedied The fourth said That Fat persons have a more moderate and less consuming heat its activity being allay'd by the humidity of their Constitution and therefore 't is more durable than that of lean people whose heat already violent of it self is render'd more active by siccity which is a spur to it Hence they indure fasting with more trouble than the Fat whose moist substance both moderates and feeds their heat which appears to the touch very gentle and temperate as that of lean persons is sharp and pungent Moreover Diseases of Inanition to which the lean are subject are more difficult to cure than those of Repletion incident to the Fat. And old age which continually dries us up is the tendency to Death which is siccity it self The Fifth said Health being a Disposition according to Nature which renders a man capable of performing the offices of life aright and this disposition consisting in a due proportion of the first qualities which makes a harmony and laudable temper of the four humors the principal evidence thereof is a good state and habit of the body call'd by the Physicians Euexia and that Extreme which comes nearest this is the most healthy and fittest for long life The functions of life are Natural Vital and Animal all which are better perform'd by the lean than the fat First the Natural which are Nutrition Growth and Generation because the hotter flesh of the lean attracts more than that of the fat which may indeed imbibe the nutritive juices but cannot perfectly concoct and assimilate the same for want of sufficient heat whence they produce abundance of crude flegmatick excrements which render them pale and bloated For their more fatness proceeds from want of heat to consume superfluities Secondly growth being an effect of heat the Fat grow less because they are less hot than the Lean. For heat rarefies subtilises dilates and make the parts mount upwards as its defect makes the humors settle downwards hence women are never so tall as men and their lower parts are grosser whereas the upper parts of men as the head and breast are more large Thirdly the lean are more apt for generation because their spirits are more refin'd and their seed more concoct and plentiful than that of the fat the purest portion of whose blood is turn'd into fat instead of seed whence all guelded Animals become fat and according to Aristotle fat women are for the most part barren bear seldom who also as well as men of the same habit are more inclin'd to love but we are commonly most led to that which we perform best Then the Vital Functions too are more perfectly perform'd in the lean as appears by their large respiration their strong and great pulse the nimbleness in their motions and passions Lastly so also are the Animal to wit outward and inward sensation by reason of the pureness and subtlety of their spirits which likewise causes goodness of wit and of the disposition of their Organs more purifi'd and less burden'd with clouds and excrementitious humidities which render the fat more heavy both of mind and body CONFEERNCE CXXIV Whether we may better trust one whom we have oblig'd or one that hath oblig'd us COnfidence being the fruit of Friendship yea the sweet bond wherewith this Virtue unites Hearts it may seem we ought to have most in him that loves most perfectly namely he that hath oblig'd us For as 't is harder to give then to receive because we cannot give without depriving our selves of what we enjoy which is contrary to our natural inclination so it is a more virtuous action and argues a greater kindness the receiver of a benefit finding no difficulty in this action of receiving it Moreover we cannot doubt of his good will who obliges us by his benefits but we may of his that receives For it frequently happens to those that do good as it did to the Sower in the Gospel part of whose seed fell in stony places part amongst thorns part in the high-way and was devoured by birds and the least part upon good ground and brings not forth fruit but in its own time Yea there are many that hate nothing so much as the remembrance of those that have done them good as if their presence were an Universal Reproach notwithstanding that a second benefit revives the first and a third or fourth cannot but mind them of the preceeding But when you have obtain'd of them to remember it yet many regret nothing more then to pay a debt because constrain'd thereto either by Law or Duty and Man being of his own Nature free hates nothing so much as to do any thing by constraint Hence if he requites an Obligation 't is not with that freeness and cheerfulness which is requisite to good Offices and becomes a Benefactor in whom therefore we have more reason to confide then in another The Second said The little fidelity now in the world even amongst nearest Relatives makes it reasonable to enquire Who may be trusted And if the fear of Ingratitude the most vulgar crime though in shew much detested by all the world is the cause why he who hath done good to another yet dares not trust him the receiver thereof hath oftentimes no less doubt of his Benefactor 's intention For though he hath receiv'd a seeming testimony of his kindness yet the motives of benefits proceeding sometimes from an other cause
besides true Friendship suspicion may as well arise in the Receivers as in the givers Mind Many give onely that they may receive with Usury others out of vanity and to make Creatures and Clients which they regarding no longer but as their inferiors and dependents 't is as dangerous for these to confide in their Benefactors as for a slave to use confidence towards his Master or a Vassal towards his Lord not often allow'd by the respect and timerousness of the less towards the great as commonly those are that give Whereas we ordinarily find in him whom we have oblig'd nothing but Subjection and Humility Virtues much disposing the mind to Gratitude which cannot but assure their Benefactors of their fidelity Nor can they easily be ungrateful if they would your confidence in them obliging them continually to fidelity and withall giving them occasion to requite your kindnesses by their assiduity and services Which was the recompence wherewith the poor amongst the Jews pay'd their Creditors by serving them for some years So that he is scarce less blameable who distrusts him whom he hath oblig'd and by this diffidence deprives him of the means of requital then he who having receiv'd a benefit betrayes his Benefactor the Injustice being almost alike in both If the first complains of having been deceiv'd by him whom he finds ungrateful the second in whom his Benefactor puts not the confidence which he ought will have no less cause of complaint that on the contrary he hath distrusted him and soil'd the lustre of the first Obligation by his diffidence and bad opinion of him which is to tax himself of impudence for having done good to one unworthy of it The Third said That if Men were perfect Communicative Justice would require of them that the receiver of a benefit should repay the like or at least some acknowledgment by his endeavours Which the Poets intimated by the Graces holding Hand in Hand But the perversity of Man is such that the more he is oblig'd to this Duty the worse he acquits himself thereof not doing any thing handsomely but what he does freely and because being a vain-glorious Creature he hates nothing so much as to be subject and to pay homage to him that hath done him good whose presence seems to upbraid him with his own meaness If he loves his Benefactor 't is with an interess'd and mercenary affection whereas that of the former is free from all self-respect and proceeds meerly from a principle of Virtue and consequently is with more reason to be rely'd upon Moreover a Work-man loves his Production more then he is lov'd by it as also God doth his Creatures and Fathers their Children Now a Benefactor who is a kind of Work-man and Artificer of our good Fortune cherishes and loves us as his work and creatures because he seems concern'd for our preservation just as Causes are for that of their Effects in which themselves revive and seem to be reproduc'd The Fourth said That our Natural Sentiments incline us more to rely upon those whom we have oblig'd then upon those who have oblig'd us not so much by way of challenging a requital for Obligations are not to be done in hope of recompence which would be exchange rather than kindness as because we are apt to trust those most whom we love most But we love those most to whom we have given greatest Testimony of our Affections A Man may be deceiv'd in reckoning his benefits as causes of Amity in the receiver but they are certain Effects and Signs of Affection in the bestower So that in respect of us 't is manifestly better to trust him whom we have oblig'd than him who hath oblig'd us The same is prov'd also in respect of him that is oblig'd even the wild beasts are tam'd and instead of hurting obey those that feed them and therefore 't were injurious to humanity not to judge It capable of acknowledging a benefit which it knows how to conferr without provocation For upon examination the Causes of Ingratitude will be found to arise from those who boast of the title of Benefactors the imprudence whereof is so great in some that they displease more than oblige by Presents unseasonably given of no value and contrary to Seneca's advice of little duration intermixt with ill Offices instead of being fenc'd with new to keep out the rain of the disgusts and coldnesses which destroy Friendship with regret and not with a chearful Countenance after denials and delayes so that the thing seemes rather snatch'd then receiv'd diminish'd by burthensome conditions and lastly nullifi'd by reproaches if not requited as soon as was expected Whence such pretended benefits deserve rather the name of Out-rages And nevertheless being there are many that are grateful even for such benefits we may justly conclude that Courtesies done with their due circumstances are far more capable to oblige the receivers to Gratitude which cannot consist with Unfaithfulness The Fifth said That the Decision of this as of all other Moral Questions depends upon persons times places and other circumstances whereupon Prudence is founded which teaches when how and whom we are to trust Yet supposing circumstances alike and two persons equally virtuous one of which hath done me good and the other receiv'd good from me the contrary Reason of the Law which presumes him alwayes bad who hath been once bad makes me judge That he who hath once done me good will sooner do me good again then another and therefore that I ought rather to trust him CONFERENCE CXXV Of the Causes of Freezing and Thawing AS Heat and Cold are the Efficient Causes of all Meteors so Driness and Moisture supply Matter for them sublim'd and made volatil by extraneous Heat Vapours which make Aqueous Meteors are of two sorts some ascend to the Middle Region of the Air whose coldness condenses them into a Cloud which afterwards turnes into Rain Snow or Hail Others through the weakness of Heat or tenuity of their Matter unable to ascend turn into Mists and Dew and the Serene which preceedes it and Frost For the Matter both of Frost and Dew is a subtil thin Vapour which when spread equally and uniformly about the Earth hinders not the Air 's transparency which therefore in time of Frost is alwayes clear and serene But their Efficient is distinct that of Dew is the moderate Coldness of the Night whence 't is most frequent in temperate Seasons that of a Frost is Vehement Cold whereby being first condens'd it falls down in form of Crystal Yet Cold alone suffices not to produce Frost for then Water which is cold in an eminent degree should be alwayes frozen But some terrene and gross parts must serve for an uniting medium to compact the moist parts of the Water or Vapour which being naturally fluid cannot be link'd together but by means of some dry parts fixing and restraining their fluidity Hence the impurest and most compounded Liquors are soonest frozen
Senses of their party as Vices have The Third said That sensible and palpable things as examples are have more power upon us than bare words which cannot so well perswade a Truth but that they alwayes leave some doubting in us whereas Examples being sensible give us a more entire and perfect Knowledge yea they have influence even upon brute beasts who learn not by Precepts but by Examples which is an evidence of their certainty for a thing is the more certain the more common it is to us with more Hence Plato affirmes That Examples are necessary to perswade high and lofty matters Precepts indeed dispose but Examples animate the Soul to Virtue those admonish these stimulate and guide as in the resolution of doing well Instructions shew the way but Examples drive us with the point of Honour and the force of Emulation Nor do Precepts include Examples but the contrary and every Example comprehends a Document When we see a Good Man square his Life out to his Duty we find I know not what satisfaction and contentment in the admimiration of his Virtue and this pleasure makes us conceive yea strongly perswades us that all Virtues are amiable Even Vicious Examples sometimes make Vice appear to us so deform'd that we detest instead of pursuing it Hence the Lacedemonians setting aside the Precepts of Temperature were wont to make their Slaves drunk that the ill-favour'd spectacle might make their Children abhor that Vice Lastly Our Saviour whose Life was a continued Example of Virtue did more Works to teach us then he gave Words and Precepts most of which are comprehended under Examples and Parables Yea the Devil well knowing that Adam's mind was too strong to be prevail'd upon by Reasons first gain'd that of his Wife which was more weak that he might allure him to sin by her Example The Fourth said The end is not onely more noble but also more effectual than the means for 't is to that alone that they aim and terminate Now the end of all Examples is to deduce Precepts from them which Precepts are general Notions grounded upon many Experiences or Examples either of others or our own but these being wholly particular can have no power upon the Understanding which frames its conclusions onely upon things universally true as Maximes and Precepts are and that more than Examples for these are never perfect but full of a thousand defects those sure and infallible Moreover Precepts move the Understanding which is the noblest of all the Faculties whereas Examples make impression onely upon the outward senses and dull wits The Fifth said That as the Sight and the Hearing know how to put a difference between Colours and Sounds without Learning and all the Faculties can naturally discern their own Objects So the Understanding knows naturally the first Principles and clearly beholds those first Verities The Will hath also in it self the Principles and Seeds of Virtues as the Synteresis and remorse of Conscience in the most wicked sufficiently prove and is of it self carryed to Virtuous Actions without needing either Preecepts or Examples equally unprofitable to the bad who amend not thereby and to the good who want them not The Sixth said That the Question is to be decided by distinguishing of the Minds of Men. Those that excel in Judgement attribute more to Reason than to Examples which being more sensible affect the Imagination of duller heads who are not capable of Reasons So that though Precepts and Arguments be without comparison more perfect than Examples yet because very few are capable of them because the generality of the World is stupid and dull therefore they are not generally so proper to teach as Examples which nevertheless being of no power but serving onely to clear an obscure Truth ought not to have any ascendant over a Mind that is reasonable and furnish'd with Knowledge CONFERENCE CXXVIII Of Incubi and Succubae and whether Devils can generate TWo sorts of people err in this matter the superstitious and ignorant vulgar who attribute every thing to Miracles and account the same done either by Saints or Devils and the Atheists and Libertines who believe neither the one nor the other Physitians take the middle way distinguishing what is fit to be attributed to Nature and her ordinary motions from what is supernatural to which last Head 't is not reasonable to referr diseases and indispositions as the Incubus is call'd by the Greeks Ephialtes and by the vulgar the Night-mare 'T is defin'd An impediment of Respiration Speech and Motion with oppression of the Body whereby we feel in our sleep as 't were some weight upon the Stomack The Cause of it is a gross Vapor obstructing principally the hinder part of the Brain and hindring the egress of the Animal Spirits destinated to the motion of the parts which Vapor is more easily dissipable than the humor which causeth the Lethargy Apoplexy and other Symptoms which are therefore of longer duration than this which ceases as soon as the said Vapor is dissipated Now whereas the Passions of the Mind and Body commonly supply the matter of Dreams as those that are hungry or amorous will think they eat or see what they love those that have pain in some part dream that some body hurts the same hence when Respiration the most necessary of all the animal functions is impeded we presently imagine we have a load lying on our Breasts and hindring the dilatation of the same And because the Brain is employ'd in the Incubus therefore all the animal functions are hurt the Imagination deprav'd the Sensation obtunded Motion impeded Hence those whom this evil seizes endeavor to awake but can neither move nor speak till after a good while And though the Cause of this disorder be within our selves nevertheless the distemper'd person believes that some body is going about to strangle him by outward violence which the depraved Imagination rather thinks upon than Internal Causes that being more sensible and common This has given occasion to the error of the Vulgar who charge these Effects upon Evil Spirits instead of imputing them to the Malignity of a Vapor or some phlegmatick and gross humor oppressing the Stomack the coldness and weakness whereof arising from want of Spirits and Heat which keeps all the parts in due order are the most manifest Causes Much unlikely it is to be caused by Generation which being an Effect of the Natural Faculty as this of the Vegetative Soul cannot belong to the Devil who is a pure Spirit The Second said As 't is too gross to recurr to supernatural Causes when Natural are evident so 't is too sensual to seek the Reason of every thing in Nature and to ascribe to meer Phlegm and the distempered Phant'sie the Coitions of Daemons with Men which we cannot deny without giving the lye to infinite of persons of all Ages Sexes and Conditions to whom the same have happened nor without accusing the Sentences of Judicial Courts
often as little Children and Old people whose heat being weak and easily dissipated they must be often nourish'd but by a little at a time for fear of overcharging their too weak Stomacks The last and commonest way is to eat plentifully but seldom which is the manner of middle-ag'd people who usually eat twice a day and more at one Meal than at the other it being hard for a Man to satiate himself both at Dinner and Supper without indammaging his Health Which made Plato wonder when he heard that the Sicilians fill'd themselves with Meat twice a day and oblig'd the Romans to make a light repast about Noon and a splendid Supper which I am for Upon this account the Church hath to macerate us forbidden Suppers on Fasting dayes which is an Argument that they are more agreeable and more conducing to Health than Dinners For such quantity of Food is to be taken as answers to the natural heat which being not onely more vigorous but also of longer duration between Supper and Dinner than between Dinner and Supper the interval whereof is seldom above six or seven hours whereas that between Supper and Dinner is about seventeen 't is more reasonable to sup more largely than dine For if the Dinner be largest we shall eat either as much as the heat is able to digest by Supper-time or more If we eat more and go to Supper before the digestion of the Dinner is wholly finish'd we shall beget crudities which are the seed of most diseases If we eat as much as the heat can digest and the Supper be less then the Dinner then the heat which follows the Supper being stronger and more active will soon concoct the meat taken at Supper and because 't is a natural agent not acting from a principle of liberty but of necessity and cannot remain idle having no extraventitious matter to work upon it will necessarily consume the laudable juices of the body drying up the same during sleep For whereas sleep is said to moisten whence arose the Proverb Qui dort mange He that sleeps eats 't is true when the stomach and entrals being fill'd with sufficient nourishment the Heat raises and disperses to all the parts the purest of the juices and vapours like gentle dews which it cannot do when the Stomach is empty The fourth said Nature having given us an Appetite to advertise us of the need of all parts there is no certainer rule of the time of Repast than this Appetite which for this reason is seated in the upper Orifice of the Stomach render'd sensible by the Nerves of the sixth Pair terminating therein For there is a continual dissipation of our substance in all the parts which being exhausted attract from their neighbours wherewith to fill their own emptiness these solicit the Liver for supply that the Guts by the Mesaraick Veins these the Stomack at the top whereof this suction terminates the sense or perception whereof is call'd Appetite which if of hot and dry is call'd Hunger if of cold and moist Thirst So that Nutrition being onely to recruit and repair the loss of our Substance there is no more assured sign of the fitting time to eat then when the said Appetite is most eager at what hour soever it be The fifth said That this might have place in well temper'd bodies which desire onely so much as they are able to digest but not in those whose Appetite is greater than their Digestion as cold and melancholy Stomacks or who desire less as the hot and bilious whose heat melting the juices abates the Appetite as on the contrary Coldness contracting the membranes of the Stomack augments it So that 't is most expedient for every one to consult his own Temper Age Nature and Custom of living Old people little Children such as are subject to Defluxions or have weak Stomacks must sup sparingly on the other side the Cholerick and such as are subject to the Head-ach must eat a larger Supper than Dinner But above all the Custom of every particular person is most considerable herein CONFERENCE CXXIII Which of the Humane Passions is most excusable MAn being compos'd of two Pieces Body and Soul and upon that account styl'd by Trismegistus The Horizon of the Universe because he unites in himself the spiritual nature with the Corporeal the Inclinations whereof are different he hath also need of two guides to conduct those two Parts the Rational and the Animal and make them know the Good towards which they are carried of their own Nature The Intellect makes him see the Honest and Spiritual Good the Imagination enables him to conceive a sensible and corporeal Good And as the Rational Appetite which is the Will follows the light afforded to it by the Intellect in pursuit of Honest Good whence Vertue ariseth so the sensitive Appetite is carri'd to the enjoyment of sensible Good which the Imagination makes it conceive as profitable and pleasant and that by motions commonly so disorderly and violent that they make impression not only upon the Mind but upon the Body whose Oeconomy they discompose and for this reason they are call'd Passions or Perturbations and Affections of the Mind These Passions either are carri'd towards Good and Evil simply as Love and Hatred the first inclining us to Good which is the Parent of Beauty the latter averting us from Evil or else they consider both Good and Evil Absent as Desire and Flight or Lastly they consider them being present and cause Pleasure and Grief which if of longer duration produce Joy and Sadness Now because difficulties frequently occurr in the pursuit of Cood and flight of Evil therefore Nature not contented to have indu'd Animals with a Concupiscible Appetite which by means of the six above-mention'd Passions might be carri'd towards Good and avoid Evil hath also given them another Appetite call'd Irascible to surmount the Obstacles occurring in the pursuit of Good or flight of Evil whence arise five other Passions Hope Despair Boldness Fear and Anger Hope excites the soul to the prosecution of a difficult but obtainable good Despair checks the motions of the soul towards the pursuit of a Good no longer obtainable Boldness regards an absent Evil which assures it self able to surmount Fear considers the same absent Evil without any means of being able to avoid it Lastly the violence of Anger is bent against a present Evil whereof it believes a possibility to be reveng'd And because a present and enjoyed Good cannot be accompani'd with difficulty hence there is no Passion in the Irascible Appetite answering to Anger as there is in the other Passions which again are divided according to the several objects about which they are exercis'd The desire of Honours is call'd Ambition that of Riches Covetousness that of fleshly Pleasures Concupiscence that of Meats Gourmandise or Gluttony The Hatred of Vice causes Zeal that of a Rival Jealousie The sorrow arising upon the sight of Evil suffer'd by an
the melancholick besides very nimble and dextrous through the plenty of spirits and as 't is easily disorder'd so likewise 't is restor'd in a little time its maladies being the shortest Moreover its vivacity is much more desirable then the heaviness and lumpishness attending the Melancholy and making the Vulgar think them Sage and prudent though they are only so in appearance whereas the Cholerick are Industrious and Courageous accomplishing whatever they attempt and as amongst Beasts and Birds the noble Lyon and Eagle are of this complexion and according to some our first Parent Adam which signifies Red was in hair and temper bilious whence perhaps also Man is call'd in the same language Ish which signifies Fire whereof choler partakes The Fifth said That indeed his readiness to obey his Wife was an effect of that Temper of which he seems rather to have been then of that laudable and perfectly temperate one which our Saviour enjoy'd But indeed Tempers being the principles of all our functions which must be different in every individual are desirable according to the Places Seasons Employments Age Sex and Inclinations of every one in particular CONFERENCE CXXXV Of Happiness and Vnhappiness and whether men are Happy or Vnhappy because they really are so or because they think themselves so THree sorts of effects are observ'd in Nature Some arise always necessarily as the vicissitudes of Days Nights and Seasons which depend upon the motion of the Stars no more alterable without a miracle then the other effects of Universal Nature Others come to pass often but not always the particular nature which produces them being sometimes hindred by some accident which makes it bring forth Monsters The last happen neither always nor often but seldom as all those which depend upon contingent causes which are of two sorts The first act by a necessity of nature without any election The second by a principle of liberty without choice or deliberation Both when they produce an effect contrary to their intention and primary design are called fortuitous causes And as those which act by natural necessity produce a casualty as when a Stone falls upon the head of any one so when those which operate by election and design produce another thing then what they had propounded to themselves they make fortune or good and ill-luck according to the good or evil arising thence by ways and springs by us unforeseen for in case the cause or motives be known the effects are no longer fortuitous and contingent because they have their manifest and certain cause So when industry labour favour or friendship procure Riches the effect is not to be ascrib'd to Fortune no more then the losses which follow upon the luxury and profusions of a disorderly life but Riches and Honours are fortuitous when they happen to persons altogether incapable thereof as also poverty infamy and contempt also to brave men whose constancy and resolution in undergoing all those disgraces hath made it be commonly said That a wise man is above fortune because he slights her stroaks by the strength of his reason which being alone capable to render us happy since Beasts destitute thereof have neither any share in good-luck or bad-luck I conceive that both the one and the other depends intirely upon our fansie and the reflection we make upon the condition of the thing possessed which appearing sometimes good and sometimes bad makes us accordingly judge our selves happy or unhappy The Second said Diversity is no where more apparent than in humane Actions the incertainty and inconstancy whereof is such that men rarely arrive at their proposed end but oftentimes behold themselves either exalted to an unhoped degree of Felicity or overwhelmed with the Misery which there was no ground to apprehend Which diversity of accidents induced Superstitious Antiquity to set up a blind and flitting Deity constant onely in her inconstancy whom they held the cause of all such effects thus betaking themselves to an imaginary canse in regard they could not or would not acknowledg the true which I attribute to every ones temperament by means of which is produced in the Soul a certain natural motion and impetuosity for obtaining some particular thing without Reasons contributing thereunto and according as a Man follows or resists these instincts and inclinations so he proves either happy or unhappy Thus he who finds himself disposed to Arms if he embrace them thrives better than in a soft and sedentary life whereunto the Melaneholly person is more addicted and prospers better herein Now because dull spirits fools and thick-skull'd fellows easily suffer themselves to be guided by those motions therefore they commonly prove more fortunate than the wise whose Prudence and Discretion causing them to make abundance of reflections upon what they undertake causes them also to lose opportunities which never return For I am not of their Opinion who hold That as there are Spirits which make the Celestial Orbes move and according to Averroes an Intelligence presiding over natural Generations so there is a particular one for the various events of life which it makes to happen according to the different intentions of the First Mover Since without recurring to such obscure and remote causes we carry in our selves those of our Felicity and Infelicity whereof we are the true Artificers which to place in the Phansie alone and not in reality is to say good is not Good since goodness being an essential affection of real entity is inseparable from it and consequently true not barely imaginary The Third said That Good being such onely upon account of its conveniency or sutableness to the Possessor there is not in this world any Absolute Good or Happiness but onely Relative and by Comparison seeing what sutes well with one doth not so with another Riches wherein most Men place their Felicity were cast into the Sea by a Philosopher that he might the better attend Contemplation Honors and Pleasures charms which most powerfully inveigle most of Man-kind are crosses and torments to some others Imprisonment one of the hardest trials of Patience is nevertheless sought by some who prefer Solitude and perpetual Restraint before the vanities of the world To have no Friends is the greatest of infelicities yet Timon made it his prime Pleasure Life the foundation of all goods hath been so tedious to some that to be deliver'd from it they have kill'd themselves and the pains afflictions and diseases leading to death are in the Stoicks account but imaginary Evils making no impression upon the wise The Fourth said Since Happiness and Unhappiness seem to be the Elements composing the Political Life of Men and the two Poles of that Globe upon which the Antients plac'd Fortune their Consideration may be taken two ways either in their Cause or in their Effect As for the first the Stoicks who establisht a Fate governing All by a Series of necessary and determinate Events were as impious as Democritus and Leucippus who on the
and the good Constitution of the Brain the fuliginous vapors whereof being repercuss'd by the abundance of Hair cause Vertigoes and pains of the Head not more certainly cur'd than by shaving the Head As for seemliness much Hair is rather frightful than handsome and our Ancestors were no less comely persons than we though they wore short Hair as at this day also do many warlike Nations Enemies of softness and delicacy whereof great Hair is a most certain token being proper to Women as on the contrary the long Beard is a note of Virility For inasmuch as he that loves conformes as much as possible to what he loves we may judge of the softness and dissoluteness of the manners of this time by the desire Men have to render themselves as like Women as they can by wearing like them much Hair and little Beard For when Men wore shorter Hair long Beards were in request and when the Hair ha's been long the Beards have almost ever been short the length of the one recompencing the brevity of the other which would otherwise render Men hideous The Third said If ever 't was true that Custom is a Tyrant 't is in this Case no variation having been so much as in matter of Hair The Scythians and Parthians wore both Hair and Beard long thereby to terrifie their Enemies The Greeks whose Hair is much commended by Homer kept it long to distinguish themselves from their slaves who were shorn as at present are Galley-slaves Artizans and Monasticks for Humility whom also Peter Lombard Bishop of Paris caus'd to shave their Hair and Beard in the year 1160 according to the 44th Canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage which forbids Clerks to wear either Locks or Beards The Aegyptians wear their Hair long and shave off their Beards The Maxii a people of Africa are shorn on one side of the Head and let the Hair grow on the other The Abaudi had the fore-part onely shaven the Antii contrary The Arabians shave even their Daughters round about leaving a Lock on the top The Armenians shave their Hair into the form of a Cross but there is something more majestical in the Beard than in the Hair and even Animals furnisht there-with seem to have some sort of gravity more than others Hence such as have affected the title of Wise have likewise suffer'd their Beards to grow but the Ephori made the Lacedemonians cut theirs as also Alexander and many Captains did their Souldiers lest their Enemies might catch hold of them But as the caprichio of persons of authority especially Courtiers gives the first model of fashions particularly as to Hair and Beard so to wear short Hair now every one's reaches to his waste or a magisterial spade Beard now all are close shaven except such whose Age and Condition exempts them from this Rule were for a Man to make himself taken notice of for things which bring no commendation which hath no place in discreet Minds but argues a phantastical and humorsome person who is commonly appointed contrary to the Modes whereof the present continually out-vie the Antient. The Fourth said Hair which is rather the leavs and boughs than as Plato held the roots of Man's Body which he terms a Tree revers'd having been chiefly design'd for preservation of the Brain from External Injuries they who would have care of their Health must consult the Constitution of their Brain before they determine either for long or short Hair Cold and Moist Brains need store of Hair to fence off the cold Air Hot and Dry the contrary As for the Hair of the Chin it was design'd onely for Ornament and a Testimony of the Authority which the Male hath above the Female whence that part seemeth somewhat sacred it being an Injury to touch one's Beard of which the Emperor Otho made such account that according to Cuspinian he was wont to swear by his own The proportion of it ought to follow the model of others of like condition Wise Men following the advice of the greatest number in matters indifferent provided they be not contrary to Honesty and Health CONFERENCE CL. VVhether Alterations of States have natural Causes STates being compos'd of Realms or Provinces these of Cities and Towns these of Families these of particular Persons and each Person having Natural Causes 't is clear that the Alteration of the Whole is to be attributed to the same Causes which make the change of its parts Thus when all the Houses of a Town are afflicted with Pestilence or consum'd by Fire which Accidents are capable of producing great Mutations in a Common-wealth it cannot be otherwise express'd but by saying that the Town is burnt or wasted by the Plague And as when the particular suffrages of each Counsellor tend to the absolution or condemnation of a Criminal 't were senseless to say that the Sentence of the Court were other than that of the President and Counsellors so also it is ridiculous to say that the Causes of personal mutations are Natural but not those of Political As therefore 't is almost the sole demonstration we have in Physicks that our Bodies are chang'd and corrupted because they are compos'd of the four Elements in like sort I conceive the Cause of alteration befalling the body of a State is to be sought in the Collection of the several members that compose it which coming to lose the harmony proportion and respect which made them subsist they are dissolv'd and corrupted which is a mutation purely natural and of absolute necessity The Second said If God hath reserv'd any thing to his own disposal 't is that of Crowns and the preservation of States which are the first and universal Causes of the safety of every particular person Whence the transferring of those Crowns from one State to another which is a greater mystery is a mutation purely supernatural as not onely God himself hath manifested when he subjected the State of the Israelites first to Judges and Captains which was a kind of Aristocracy and afterwards to Kings reducing them to a Monarchy but also all such as have wrought great changes in States of the World And Legislators knowing this belief imprinted in all Men's Minds have affected the Reputation of being descended from or favor'd by some Deity as did Alexander the Great and Numa Pompilius Moreover the Holy Scripture attributes to God the changing of Scepters and frequently styles him the God of Battels the winning and losing whereof are the most common and manifest Causes of the change of States And 't is a pure effect of the Divine Will that Men born free subject themselves to the Will of one sole or few persons so the changing of that Inclination cannot proceed but from Him who is the searcher of Hearts and gives us both to will and to do If Natural Causes had their effects as certain in Politicks as in Physicks States should have their limited durations as Plants and Animals have and yet
there is such a disproportion in the duration of all States past and present that one hath lasted above 1200. years as the French Monarchy whose flourishing State promises as many more Ages if the World continue so long and another hath chang'd its Form several times in one yeat as Florence Upon which consideration the greatest Politicians have put their States under the Divine Protection and caus'd all their Subjects to venerate some particular Angel or tutelar Saint Thus France acknowledges Saint Michael for its Protector Spain Saint James Venice Saint Mark and even the Ethnicks thought that a City much less a State could not be destroy'd till the Deity presiding over it were remov'd Whence Homer makes the Palladium of Troy carry'd away by Vlysses before the Greeks could become Masters of it The Third said The Supream Cause exercises its Omnipotence in the Rise Conservation and Destruction of States as well as every where else yet hinders not subordinate Causes from producing their certain Effects natural in things natural as in the Life and Death of Men which though one of the most notorious Effects of God's Power and attributed to him by the Scripture and all the World yet ceaseth not to have its infallible and natural demonstrations Inlike manner subordinate Moral Causes produce their Moral and contingent Effects in Moral Things such as that in Question is which Causes depending upon Humane Actions which arise from our Will no-wise necessitated but free cannot be term'd natural and constrain'd unless either by those that subject all things here below to Destiny which subverts the liberty of the Will that is makes it no longer a Will or those who will have not only the manners of the Soul but also the actions always to follow the temperament of the Body which were hard to conceive and yet would not infer a necessity in the alteration of States since the effects of Love and Hatred and other passions which give inclination or aversion are oftentimes prevented by thwarting causes When the Lacedemonians chang'd the popular State of Athens into an Aristocracy of thirty Lords whom they call'd afterwards the thirty Tyrants no other cause can be assign'd thereof but the chance of War which subjected the will of the Athenians to that of the Lacedemonians And the same may be said of all other ancient and modern Revolutions Indeed if the causes in Policy had regular effects or States were subject to natural declinations Prudence which is conversant about contingent things to manage them freely and alter its course according to occasion should signifie nothing 'T is more credible that as in the state of Grace God hath left our actions to the disposal of Free-will that we may work out our Salvation our selves so in the administration of Republicks he hath left most things to chance for imploying men's industry according to their will whose motions being free and contingent are diametrically opposite to the necessity of natural causes The Fourth said That these alterations may be though voluntary yet natural yea necessary too our Will being as inclin'd to apprehended good as our Intellect is to Truth As therefore knowing this truth that 2 and 2 are 4 't is impossible but I must believe it so knowing that such an action will bring me good I shall do it so that the causes of humane actions have somthing of necessity and besides having their foundation in nature may in some sort be term'd natural Moreover since things are preserv'd by their like and destroy'd by their contraries which contraries are under the same genus it follows that all sublunary things having had a natural beginning must also have a like end Desire of self-preservation which is natural gave birth to States but if instead of this desire which renders Servants obedient to their Masters these to the Magistrate and him to the Sovereign Rebellion and Treason deprive their Chiefs of the succour they expect from them and by this means exposes the State in prey to the Enemies it cannot but fall to ruine unless that some other natural cause Perswasion as that of Menenius Agrippa taken from the humane body upon a Secession of the Mechanicks of Rome from the Senate or an exemplary punishment reduce the Subjects to their forsaken duty Whereby it appears that the State resumes its first vigor by as sensible and natural causes as 't is to be perswaded or become wise by others harm Amongst many examples the ruines of Troy and Thebes were caus'd by the rape of Helene whom the injustice of the Trojans deny'd to restore to her Husband and the feud of two Brothers aspiring to the same Royalty then which no causes can be assign'd more natural and more necessarily inferring the loss of a State CONFERENCE CLI Which is more healthful to become warm by the Fire or by Exercise THey who question the necessity of Fire for recalefying our Bodies chill'd by cold the enemy of our natural heat deserve the rude treatment of the ancient Romans to their banish'd persons whom they expell'd no otherwise from their City but by interdicting them the use of Fire and Water knowing that to want either was equally impossible Without Fire our Bodies would be soon depriv'd of life which resides in heat as cold is the effect and sign of death And as Aristotle saith those that deny Vertue would not be otherwise disputed with but by casting them into the fire so would not I otherwise punish those that decry it but by exposing them to freez in mid-winter instead of burning a faggot for them What could little Children and old people do without it For though the natural heat be of another kind then that of our material fire yet this sometimes assists that in such sort that those who digest ill are much comforted by it not to mention weak persons and those that are subject to swoonings Moreover the external cold must be remov'd by an external heat as Fire is which heats only what part and to what degree you please but motion heats all alike As the Sun which some Philosophers take to be the Elemental-fire contributes to the Generation so doth Fire concur to the conservation of Man not by immediate contact but by the heat which it communicates to the Air and the Air to our Body which by approaching or receding from it tempers its excess in discretion and thereby renders it sutable to our natural heat not destroying Bodies but in its highest degree as also the Sun offends those at Noon whom it refreshes at rising and setting The Second said That the violent action of Fire which destroys all sublunary Bodies argues its disproportion with our natural heat which disproportion renders the Stoves and places heated artificially by Fire so noxious and makes such as love the Chimney-corner almost always tender scabby and impatient of the least inclemency of the Air that heat against nature not only destroying the natural but corrupting the humors and exsiccating
a pretense to lay the fault other-where then upon it self If haply some one acknowledges that he wanted fore-sight judgment and good mannagement in his affairs yet he will alwayes turn the fault from himself and rather recurre to causes that are not saying That he was bewitch'd or at least deceiv'd even so far as to accuse the truth of the most general Maxims when they prove not to agree with his own false Principles Whereas we are forward enough to condemn others magisterially both in presence and absence The Sixth said That what is receiv'd being according to the form and capacity of the recipient 't is impossible for the mind to conceive any thing greater then it self if it do 't is by negation as the Eye sees night when it sees nothing and as the most perfect Souls conceive the Deity namely by conceiving that they cannot conceive it which is no knowledge at all Hence the Sky Houses Trees and other great visible Objects enter into the Eye onely by a visual species proportional to the bigness of the pupil which diminishes them So likewise the understanding or minde of Man being to judge of that of another abstracts such intentional species thereof as are correspondent to its own capacity and such alone as it is able to comprehend And as the continent is bigger then the thing contained so this intentional Species which represents the image of anothers minde being less then the minde which conceives it 't is no wonder if that which is conceived appears less then that which conceives it For otherwise since the understanding is conform'd to the thing which it understands if it should conceive an Idea of a minde greater then it self is it should become greater then it self which is absurd Besides as things nearest us appear greatest and nothing is nearer us then our selves 't is not to be marvell'd at if we pass judgement to our own advantage The Seventh said That the reason of this difference is because the species which concern others are not so deeply ingraven as those which the understanding incessantly traces in it self whence it is that the dispositions of that first rank are not so well imprinted as the habits of the second Now that the Species relating to others are more lightly engraven than those that concern our selves appears by the example of the Graver which passing but lightly over the Copper makes a little stroke almost imperceptible whereas by its repassing several times upon the same place as is done by the frequent repetition of the same thoughts upon what regards our selves it makes more remarkable lines Perhaps also this pleasing Error is left to Man to comfort him for the unequal share of all other Goods which otherwise would bring him into Despair or at least very much increase the unhappiness of his Life CONFERENCE CLXIII How Animals are bred of Putrefaction THe Vicissitude of finite things requiring their being in perpetual motion the same is four-fold namely 1. To Quantity which is term'd Augmentation and Diminution 2. To Quality which is call'd Alteration 3. To Place which is styl'd Local Motion 4. To Substance which is nam'd Generation and Corruption This last is the drawing forth of the Natural by some Extraneous Heat as that of the moist Ambient Air which insinuating into the corrupting body plays the part of an Agent therein and not onely alters its qualities but also either increases or diminishes its quantity as is seen in the Fermentation of Medicaments and in Leven which makes paste rise in which motion the Local is likewise observ'd Thus the matter being wrought and agitated by all sorts of motions is dispos'd in a manner suitable for receiving some form which necessarily ensues upon such disposition The Second said That in Equivocal Generation which the Question relates to Salt holds the place of the Masculine Seed and the Humidity it corrects that of the Feminine as appears by a pot fill'd with common earth which moistned only with Rain produceth Stones Plants and Snails But after you have depriv'd it of its Salt by washing it with hot water as the Saltpeter-men do it remains barren Nature employing its fixt Salt for the Formation of Stones the volatile with its Mercury for Plants and the same with its Sulphur for Animals whose diversity possibly comes from that of these Salts amongst which Nitre contributes marvellously to Fecundity Hence Excrements being almost wholly nitrous so soon produce Beetles Flyes Worms and other Insects Sweat beings of the same Nature makes Lice and Urine Fleas the slime of Marshes which is nitrous as the turfs we use for fewel manifest produces Frogs Boats of Salt swarm with Rats who conceive others by licking the Salt Wheat also being very nitrous generates Field-mice and other Insects And all this in the unctuous moisture of its self or which it renders such by its Heat which reduces the same to a viscousness fit for retaining the form to be introduc'd and as the Ebullition of Syrrops and Must is a spontaneous Motion proceeding from their salts so the same being rais'd by the heat without to a more eminent degree causes the progressive Motion in an Animal The outward formal Cause is the Disposition of the Matter which that double heat finding dispos'd for a certain Form fashions and extends for that purpose Thus the marrow of the Back-bone being near the Reins which are full of Salt may become a Serpent a Woman's Hair laid in a Dunghil produceth Worms or little Serpents Caterpillars retain the colour of the sap of the Tree through which the Humour that produces them pass'd and imitate the several colours of the Flowers about which they are bred as is seen in the mothy colours of the same Caterpillars especially when they become Butter-flies The internal formal or formative Cause is an invisible Character graven in the said Salts which determines every thing to its Species answerable to that which is found in the Seed of each Plant and Animal and which the Chymists hold cannot be extinguisht in the salts of some Plants affirming that the ashes of Sage or Rosemary sown bring forth Sage and Rosemary The Final Cause is the Perfection of the Compound whereunto Nature always aspires it being certain that an Animal is more noble than a Body inanimate whence some prefer a Fly above the Sun Upon which account she changes Mixts into Plants and these into Animals The 3d said That the Universal Spirit of the World acts in this case like a General of an Army who seeeing an Enemy ready to fly and none of his own party present to seize upon him though his Imployment be not to take Prisoners but only to give Orders yet for this time he condescends to play the part of a common Soldier so the abovesaid Universal Spirit not seeing any Form dispos'd to keeps its rank in the Order of Nature and finding the matter fit to receive the form of a Rat Mouse or Frog presently supplies the
as often of apprehension as they thought of that sad fate Which fear ended with the Swine's meat and the Ship 's arrival at a safe Port where it appear'd that that vile Animal had felt none of that trouble which the Tempest had caus'd in the more unhappy men and consequently that their Imagination was the sole cause of it The like may be said of all other afflictions which men give themselves call'd therefore deservedly by the Wise-man Vanity and vexations of spirit For most of the inductions and consequences which the Mind draws from events prove false and nevertheless they give us real sorrows we see frequently that a great Estate left by a Father to his Children makes them debauch'd and worthless and degenerate from the vertue of their Parent who having receiv'd no inheritance from his own was constrain'd to labour and by that means attain'd Riches and Honour Whence it appears that the trouble of a Father leaving a small Estate to his Children at his death hath no foundation in the thing but only in his abus'd Imagination and consequently cannot be a real Evil and yet this is the most general Evil of all with the Vulgar Thus two men lodging under the same roof lost both their Wives not long ago one of them was so afflicted therewith that he dy'd of sorrow the other receiving the consolatory visits of his friends could not so well dissemble his joy but that it was perceiv'd and yet their loss was equal So that the sadness of the one and the joy of the other depended only upon the different reflection they made upon this accident Thus also the same affront that made one of Socrates's Disciples draw his sword made the Philosopher himself laugh at the sottishness of his enemy and every thing which the Vulgar calls Good or Evil Pain excepted is a Medal which hath its right side and its reverse CONFERENCE CLXXXII Whether Man be the most diseas'd of all Creatures and why A Disease being a preternatural disposition hurting the Functions every living Body capable of action may become sick by some cause impeding its actions Hence not only Men but also Animals and even Plants have their Diseases which Theophrastus diligently describes Amongst Beasts though some are subject to particular Diseases as the Dog to Madness the Swine to Leprosie the Goat and Lyon to Fevers yet there is none so invaded with all sorts of Maladies as Man who is not exempt from any the least of his similary parts that is nourish'd being subject to twelve sorts of Diseases namely when they attract their aliment either not at all or but weakly or otherwise then they should or when they are defective either in retaining or concocting it or in voiding superfluities But if such part have sense too it may have fifteen if motion also eighteen And if it not only be nourish'd it self but labours also for the publick 't is lyable to twelve more according to the three ways that its Functions may be offended in attraction retention concoction and expulsion The Eye alone is subject to almost 200 infirmities and as if there were not ancient Diseases enough we see daily new ones unknown to former Ages Now the reason hereof lyes in the nature of Man who being the most perfectly temper'd and best compounded of all Animals because design'd to the greatest actions is therefore apt upon the least occasion to lose that evenness of proportion which as it requires a great train and concurrence of many things so also there needs but a little thing to subvert it by defect of the least of those requisites Indeed there are but two causes of Diseases to wit Internal and External and man is alike subject to both to the former by reason of his hot and moist temper which is prone to putrefaction and the more upon account of his variety of Food whereas other Animals never change their Diet which is the most probable cause of their health and good constitution For diversity of aliments incommodes Nature weakens the natural heat produces Crudities the Sources of most Diseases which also are frequently caus'd in Men by the internal Passions of Anger Fear and Joy The most ordinary external causes are the evil qualities of the Air pestilential vapours and malignant influences whereof Man's body is the more susceptible by reason of the tenderness of his Flesh and the porosity of his skin which on the contrary in other Animals is hard and cover'd with Hair Feathers and Scales and renders them less subject to the impressions of external bodies as also to Wounds Contusions Fractures and other solutions of continuity The Second said That such perfections or defects of things as we know most exactly seem to us the greatest as the excellences and defects of Pictures are not well observ'd but by those that are skill'd therein and he that is unacquainted with some certain Nation cannot know its Vices so as they that converse with it do Now Beasts being unable to signifie to us the differences of their pains and the other circumstances of their diseases hence we judge them to have fewer although the contrary appears in the Horse in whom observant Farriers remark a great number of Diseases to which we are not subject So that other Animals may have as many or more than Men who being less concern'd therein less understand them 'T is true the parts of Animals resemble ours saving what serve to distinguish their outward shape as appears by the Dissection of Apes whereby Galen learnt Anatomy and no difference is found between the Ventricles of a Man's and a Calfe's brain If their blood and other humors differ so do those of one Man from those of another Moreover Beasts have the same inward Causes Fear Anger and the other Passions in short all the other Non-natural things and not at their discretion as Man hath If a Dog hath the harder skin yet man is less lyable to blows and the injury of the Air. In fine who knows but it may be with these Animals as 't is with rusticks who though Men as well as we and subject to the same inconveniences yet all their Diseases are reduc'd to a few Heads since the true and spurious Pleurisie the Asthma the Cough the Palsie and other Maladies whereof we make so many branches are all reckon'd by them only for a hot or a cold Rheume The Third said The nearer Nature promotes Bodies to their utmost perfection the more frail she renders them And as in Mixts Glass which is her utmost atchievement is weaker and brittler than Stones so in Animals Man the most excellent and perfect is the most frail and weak by reason of the part wherein he abounds more than they and which advances him to wit the Brain the root of most Diseases And as the most noxious Meteors are form'd in the coldest Region of the Air so those that have a moist Brain are soft and less vigorous as Women and
the prejudice of a third Which yet hath not place in all there being found good Judges who would condemn their own Child if he had a bad Cause But to attribute to self-love the defect of clear-sightedness is to speak too Poetically since the Prince of Poets believes it not possible to deceive a Lover and the knowledge we have of others affairs hath no other foundation but that which we have of our own just as self-love is given us for a rule of that of our Neighbour The Third said That which happens most frequently being the rule and the rest the exception and the greatest part of Men resembling that Lamia who being blind at home put on her Eyes when she went abroad it must be agreed that we are less clear-sighted in our own than in others affairs Which is the meaning of the Proverb of the wallet in the forepart of which the bearer puts other Mens matters casting his own into the part behind upon his back Moreover to see clear is to see without clouds or mists such as are those of the Passions Fear Hope Avarice Revenge Ambition Anger and all the rest which suffer not the Species to be calmly represented to the Intellect which receives the same as untowardly as stirred water or a Looking-glass sullied with incessant clouds or vapors receive an Image objected to them 't is true the Passions have some effect upon it in affairs without but as themselves so their trouble is less and he is the best Judge who gives them no admittance at all which cannot be in our own affairs where consequently we are no less clear than in those of others CONFERENCE CLXXXIX Of the Original of Mountains GOD having created the world in perfection it was requisite there should be Plains Mountains and Vallies upon the Earth without which agreeable variety there would be no proportion in its parts wherein nevertheless consists its principal ornament which hath given it the name of world no other beginning of Mountains seems assignable but that of the world Nor is there any possibility in attributing another Cause to those great Mountains which separate not only Provinces and States but the parts of the world all the Causes that can be assigned thereof being unequal to such an Effect Which the discovery of the inequalities of the Celestial Bodies observed in our dayes by Galileo's Tubes in some sort confirmed for by them Mountains are discerned in some Planets especially an eminent one in the Orbe of Mars which Mountain cannot reasonably be attributed to any cause but his primary construction The same may likewise be said of the Mountains of the Earth which besides having necessarily its slopenesses and declivities which are followed by Rivers and Torrents there is no more difficulty to conceive a Mountain then an elevated place in the Earth so that to say that from the beginning there was no place higher in one part of the earth then in another is to gain-say Scripture which saith that there were four Rivers in Eden each whereof had its current which could not be unless the place of their rise were higher then that whereunto they tended The Second said That the proportion from which the ornament of the World results is sufficiently manifested in the correspondence of the four Elements with the Heavens and of the Heavens with themselves yea in all compounds which result from those Elements moved by heat and the Celestial influences without fancying a craggy Earth from the beginning to the prejudice of the perfection which is found in the Spherical Figure which God hath also pourtray'd in all his works which observe the same exactly or come as near it as their use will permit as is seen particularly in the fabrick of Man's Body his master-piece whereof all the original parts have somewhat of the Spherical or Cylindrical Figure which is the production of a Circle And if the other Elements of Fire Air and Water are absolutely round and cannot be otherwise conceived though their consistence be fluid and as such more easily mutable in figure 't is much more likely that the earth had that exactly round figure at the beginning otherwise the Waters could not have covered it as they did since not being diminished from the beginning of the World till this time they are not at this day capable of covering it 'T is certain then that God gave the Earth that Spherical form it being to serve for the bulk and Centre to all the other Elements by means of which roundness the Water covered it equally but when it was time to render the Earth habitable to Animals and for that end to discover a part of it it was to be rendered more hollow in some places and more elevated in others since there is no Mountain without a Valley nor on the contrary Afterwards it came to pass that the Rain washed away whatsoever was fat and unctuous in those higher places and carrying it into Brooks and Rivers and thence into the Sea this Sea by the impetuosity of his waves makes great abyffes in some places and banks of sand in others but the great and notable change happened in the universal Deluge when the many Gulfs below and Windows on high as the Scripture speaks overflowed the whole Earth for forty days and forty nights together the Earth being thus become a Sea was in a manner new shaped by the torrents of the waters and the violence of the same waves which made Abysses in some places and Mountains in others according as the Earth happened to be more or less compact and apt for resistance Which is yet easier to be conceived of Rocks which being unapt to be mollified by either that universal rovage of waters or torrents superven'd in four thousand years since they remain intire and appear at this day as supercilious as ever over the more depressed parts round about The Third said That some Mountains were produced at the Creation others since partly by Rains and Torrents partly by Winds and Earth-quakes which have also sometimes levell'd Hills and reduced them into Valleys so that you cannot assign one certain or general cause of all For there is no more reason to believe that the ravages of waters have produced Mountains then that they have levell'd and filled Valleys with their soil as 't is ordinarily seen that the fattest portion of Mountainous places is washed away by Rain into Valleys and fertilizes the same And the smallness of the Earth compared to the rest of the world permits not its inequalities to make any notable disproportion in it or hinder it from being called Round as appears in Eclipses caused by the shadow of the Earth which she sends as regularly towards Heaven as if she were perfectly round The Fourth said That the waters of the Sea from which according to the Scripture all waters issue and return thither impetuously entring into the caverns of the Earth go winding along there till they find resistance
whereby their violence redoubled makes the Earth rise in some places and so forms Mountains which therefore are more frequent on the Sea-coasts then elsewhere and seldom further from the same then a hundred and fifty Leagues Now that the Sea is higher then the Earth the Scripture notes and those that travel upon the Sea observe the truth of Genesis which saith that the waters were gathered together on a heap For being remote from a Port at such distance as would otherwise suffer the same to be seen the rising of the interposed waters intercepts the view thereof The Fifth said 'T is easie to conceive how waters running underground make breaches and abysses such as that at Rome into which Q. Curtius cast himself and also in many other places even in our time wherein a Town of the Grisons was totally involved in the ruines of a neighbouring Mountain whose foundations the torrents had undermined And what is found in digging up the ruines of Buildings paved streets and other footsteps of mens habitations so deep that the cause thereof cannot be attributed to a bare raising of the ground in building by some humane artifice shews that these changes happen'd by the depression and sinking of the ground whereon such Towns stood and by the overturning of neighbouring Mountains which in this case turn Plains into Valleys and Valleys into Plains or else into Mountains as also these Mountains into Levels all these changes which to us seem prodigious being no more so to Nature whose agents are proportional to their effect then when we cover an Ant-hill with a clod of Earth But 't is not likely that subterranean waters whose violence is broken by their windings can raise Mountains or so much as ordinarily Hills much less can they raise higher the cavities of Rocks which are the ordinary Basis of such Mountains since our Vaults are ruined by the sole defect of one cliff or stone which joyns and knits the rest together the sand Hills which the winds heap up in Lybia as the waves do the banks in the Sea pertaining as little to the Question as they deserve the name of Mountains Wherefore 't is probable that Mountains are as old as the Earth which was formed uneven by Gods command that so its declivities might serve for assembling the waters together for to say that the situation of the Sea is higher then the Earth is not only contrary to the experience of Dreiners who find the declivity of the Land by no more certain way then by the inclination of the waters but also to the belief and manner of speech of all the world who use the term of going downwards when people pass along with the stream of Rivers which run all into the Sea whose surface must therefore necessarily be lower then that of the earth Whereas it is said that all waters come from the Sea this is meant of vapors exhaled from it and converted into Rain and Springs from whence arise Rivulets Brooks and at length Rivers which terminate again in the Sea The Sixth said In pursuance of Copernicus's opinion which makes the earth turn about the Sun that the several concussions it receives from that motion may possibly elevate one place and debase another CONFERENCE CXC Whence proceed good and bad Gestures Gracefulness and ill Aspects THe Soul being the principle of all the actions we need go no further to find the cause of Gestures and Postures 'T is true that as this Soul is but a general cause being according to the opinion of most Divines alike in all men it must like melted Metal borrow its form from the Mould whereinto it is infused so the Soul follows the model of the Body and as she formed it so in some sort be modified by it exercising her functions variously according to the diversity of its Organs Whereunto also the humors and their mixture or temperament contributes very much Hence a man of small stature and cholerick hath quick and hasty motions the tall and phlegmatick more heavy and slow the Sanguine and middle-sized between both Nevertheless the principal reason is drawn from the conformation of the parts whence the Lame halts he who hath the Muscles and Ligaments of the hinder part of the Neck too short holds his Head too upright He who hath a great Mouth and a large Breast is a great talker and so of all the other parts from the diversity whereof even that of Languages is said to have come These Gestures are either universal as we see some gesticulate with the whole body or particular one contracting his Forehead another shrugging his Shoulders beating of measures with his Foot like a good Horse rubbing his Hands as if they were scabby or to be washed not being able to speak to any one without touching him pulling his Button or pushing him upon the Arm or Breast Where also is but too observable the troublesome way of some who never end their discourse but by an Interrogatory whether you hear them or at least by an hem which they continue till you answer them yea others interlard their speech with some word so impertinent that it takes away the grace from all the rest all Gestures words and vicious accents to which may be opposed others not affected or repeated too often because 't is chiefly their frequent repetition which renders them tedious and as blamable as the saying over and over the same word as on the contrary their seldomness serves for an excuse to those who have no other Above all it must be endeavoured that the Gestures suit or at least be not wholly opposite to that discourse which they accompany as that ignorant Comedian did who pronouncing these words O Heaven O Earth look'd downward at the first and cast up his Eyes at the last Whence one and the same Gesture may be good or bad in respect of the subject whereunto it is applied and according to its seldomness or frequency As for ill looks they are always disagreeable disfiguring the proportion of the countenance and proceeding also from the first conformation of the parts For as the Arm is bowed only at the Shoulder Cubit and Wrist and the Leg at the Knee and Ancle though the Soul which makes the flection be alike in all other parts but the articulation is only in those parts so the motion is carried alike to all the Muscles but only those disposed by their conformation to receive the figure of such grimaces are susceptible thereof They likewise sometimes happen upon Convulsion of the parts which cause the strange bendings we observe therein though never without a precedent disposition which may be called their antecedent cause The Second said That we ought to ascribe to the Imagination all the Motions and Gestures of the Body which are agreeable or displeasing according as they suit with that of the beholder Hence Fools and Children whose judgment is irregular are pleased with seeing such gesticulations and the grimacies of Jack-puddings
them to their Society and to none else The Third said That there have ever been spirits extravagant irregular and incapable of all Discipline both Political and Ecclesiastical Hence have risen in the Church Heresiarchs and Schismaticks in the State Rebels and Mutineers in the Sciences Innovators and presumptuous persons who wanting Ability and Constancy to undergo the pains of Study necessary for obtaining the skill requisite to the right exercise of the least Disciplines and Professions take upon them to blame what they understand not and as the vulgar easily close with Calumnies to which the faults of the Professors not the Professions give but too much occasion so they readily prepossess the Understanding of their Hearers For which there is more matter in Physick than there is in any other Profession because the vulgar who judge thereof consider only events which are not in our power but only the application of causes the rest being the work of Nature Hence Paracelsus and others of that gang started up in the world establishing new Principles and vaunting themselves upon the authority of imaginary antiquity And as no Opinion is so erroneous but hath its followers so there have been found people enough of that sort to make a Colledge who forgetting that one of the faults they charg'd upon the Rational Physicians was that in their prescriptions they made use of a strange Language and Cyphers unknown to the vulgar have imitated those above-mention'd Priests of Aegypt who made an outside shew of brave Ornaments which being lifted up you see nothing but a Cat or an Ox at the stall Thus all their discourse is only of Aurum Potabile Mercurius Vitae Magistery of Pearls Quintessences Spirits Extracts which they denote by Cyphers invented at pleasure and apply as they say only according to the mind of Heaven all the cadences whereof they observe and measure for that purpose But if you look to the bottome of all you will see their Hands foul'd with coals or dung their Faces discolour'd by the Arsenical Exhalations of the Minerals they prepare in their furnaces and yet the most pitiful wretch of them all will swear that he knows the great work Indeed this were no great matter if the success of their Practise made amends for the defects of their Theory But seing chief remedies consist in vomiting or purging violently whereof few Bodies are capable no wonder if people use them only in desperate cases Nor is their impertinence sufferable whilst to credit themselves they pretend to be descended from the Gymnosophists from whom 't is to be fear'd they inherit at last nothing else but their nakedness For what better title have they for their succeeding to all those ancient Societies I mean such as were commendable and worthy of imitation than our Faculties have which are authoriz'd by the Laws of the Prince by possession immemorial and a conformity of all Nations which renders their right as strong as that of Nations Wherefore I advise these Brethren if they will not betake themselves to study as as others do to render themselves altogether Invisible as they pretend to be withdrawing from the Commerce of the rest of Mankind The Fourth said Who openly profess'd himself one of this Fraternity said that Doctor Flud of England had ingeniously interpreted these three Letters F. fide R. religione C. charitate though the common opinion prevails which will have them signifie Fratres Roseae Crucis But neither of these interpretations can pass for a great Secret wherefore it appears upon further search that the Cross is truly significative there but in another sense which is that in this †the word LVX is included whence some think that these Brothers took in Spain the title of Illuminati I shall venture further and add that Ros Dew which is the most powerful dissolver of Gold amongst natural and not corrosive Bodies is nothing else but Light condens'd and render'd corporeal which being concocted and digested artificially in convenient time in its proper vessel is the true Menstruum of the Red Dragon i. e. of Gold the true matter of Philsophers Of which Secret this Society desiring to leave Posterity intimation in their Name styll'd themselves Brethren of the Rosie Cross Thus Jacob's blessing upon Esau contain'd only these two matters De Rore Coeli pinguedine Terrae det tibi Deus Whereas this Society is charg'd with pretences of being invisible they mean only that it hath no visible marks to distinguish it from others as other Societies have namely several colours and fashions of habits but 't is known and visible only to those of the Society it self CONFERENCE CXCIV What Paracelsus meant by the Book M. I Shall not stand to consider whether it be true as some say that more persons besides Theophrastus ab Ohenheim bore the name of Paracelsus my present purpose is only to consider a passage lately recited here out of his Archidoxa Atque haec omnia saith he there parùm vulgaria de Medicina supernaturali Magica ex libro secreto ex Arabico idiomate in Latinum verso qui pro titulo habet Literam M. In which words we may observe how remote this Author's manner of Writing is from that of the Doctors of these times yea and of former too if you except the Chymists who mainly aim to speak clearly and to render themselves intelligible many of them professing to wish that things themselves could speak From which practise this Author is so far that he conceals even the Book 's name wherein he studied by a kind of Plagium hiding his Theft lest others should trap him and the same Jealousie runs through all his Works However for Curiositie's sake let us consider what Titles will sute to this Letter Me-thinks the fittest is Mundus that great Book open to all that are minded to read in it that to which Job David and many other Authors sacred and profane so frequently refer us each Element whereof is a Tome every Compound a Book and every part thereof a Letter All other Books are only Copies of this Original to which if they happen to have conformity they pass for good if not they are meer Chimera's having no foundation in the thing Hence ariseth that so remarkable difference between the Theory and the Practise of Arts for almost all Books being false Copies of this of the World no wonder if Book-doctors are most commonly ignorant of Things whose solid Contemplation produces other satisfaction in the informed Intellect than do the empty Phansies of those who either never understood what they writ or had not the gift of right expressing it And certainly we may have more exact and natural information from the species of things themselves than either the Writing or Speech of another person can give us The Second said That this Book M. is the Book of Magick whence many have believ'd Paracelsus a Magician and the rather in that they find him teaching in many places of
Liquors represent which Masses he holds between his teeth incorporated with some gum which fastens them there so that as the Water he drinks passes impetuously between his teeth it derives colours and odors from the same Which is the reason why the water he first casts forth is most colour'd whereas if the Dye proceeded from his Stomack it would be deeper at last of all as having acquir'd more digestion by a longer infusion The Sixth said That Histories are full of several particular Constitutions of the Natural Parts witness the example of the Maid mention'd by Cardan who drinking but two pints of water a day piss'd twenty and that of the Emperor Maximinus who commonly eat forty pound weight of meat with proportionable drink and sweat so abundantly that he fill'd 'T is said That Theagenes the Thasian eat a Calf for his dinner and Milo the famous Wrastler of Croton devour'd a 100. pound of Flesh a Hogshead of Wine and Bread proportionable Such was that Parasite who one day at the Table of the Emperor Aurelius eat a Boar a Sheep a Pig and an hundred Loaves and drunk half a tun of Wine All which stories render less strange the quantity of this Maltese's Drink whose colour possibly afterwards he disguises with powders hid in his Handkerchief which he handles so often or by the help of a double Glass of which his Vessels are made or by some other trick whereto he ha's inur'd himself for many years The Seventh said That mineral waters are usually drunk with more ease in great quantity by half than common water can be because their tenuity makes them pass immediately into the habit of the Body And if you consider that this fellow drinks only out of small vessels and those not always full as also with what nimbleness he dispatches his work you will much abate the opinion that he drinks so much as is generally believed Besides though his pail be of a middle size yet 't is never quite full and he spends much water in washing his mouth and his glasses and some too is left behind Nor is it absurd to think that before his shewing himself to drink he swallows a bolus of Brazil or of Alkanet or Fearn Root or of red Sanders or Indian Wood or some such other thing in powder after which drinking two or three glasses of water he interposes some interval that the same may be the better tinctur'd in his Stomack which time being pass'd he drinks about two quarts of water which soon after he brings up red appearing so both in the Air and in the glasses Which colour being weak for want of time to be well imbib'd by the water is wholly lost when the same is powr'd into a vessel wherein there is a little Verjuice Vinegar juice of Citron Spirit of Vitriol or other such acid liquor which is proper to consume the said color And 't is observable that the last water he vomits is continually paler than the first the tincture being diminisht by the quantity of water Add hereunto that 't is likely his glasses are smear'd with some essences which seem transparent to the Spectators for though he makes shew of washing them he only passes the brims dextrously over the water and lets none of it enter into them As for the violence wherewith he spouts forth the water it must be confess'd that the fellow hath a great natural propensity to vomiting which by frequent repetition is become habitual to him Custom being capable to produce such effects that I have seen a Beggar about fifty years old by being exercis'd thereunto piss as high as a pike CONFERENCE CCII. Why dead Bodies bleed in the presence of their Murderers HOnest Antiquity was so desirous of knowing the Truth that when natural and ordinary proofs fail'd they had recourse to supernatural and extraordinary Such was the Jews water of Jealousie which made the otherwise undiscoverable Adulterer burst in sunder the innocent Vestal's Sieve in which being accus'd of Incest she carry'd water without shedding Such also were the Oaths made upon Saint Anthonie's arm of so great reverence that 't was believ'd the perjur'd would burn a year with the fire of that Saint and in our time the excommunication of Saint Geneviesue which those that incurr are commonly reckon'd not to out-live a year In like sort the zeal of Men against that horrid crime of Murder hath made them cherish a perswasion that a Carkase will bleed before its Murderers though most slain Bodies bleed when they are stirr'd that so the Conscience of the Actors being disturb'd they might either by word or gesture be brought to make discovery of themselves For indeed the Blood which was congeal'd in the Veins presently after death becomes liquid again after two or three dayes when it is in its tendency to corruption which Liquefaction and the Inquisition after the Murderer hapning commonly at the same time 't is no wonder if the Body bleed in the Murderer's presence since it doth so frequently when he is absent Yet because this false perswasion from the co-incidence of times ceases not sometimes to have its effect and to discover Truth therefore Legislators have thought fit to authorize it and to use it as an Argument at least to frighten the Murderer though indeed 't is no conclusive one to condemn him The Second said That 't is not credible that Courts of Justice who often admit this proof to good purpose could so continue in ignorance of Natural Causes as not to discern the effusion of Blood ensuing upon its putrefaction in the Veins from that which happens upon confrontation of a Murderer 'T is better therefore to seek further for the cause than to question the effect which some attribute to some secret Antipathy of the murder'd person's blood to that of his Murderer or else to their mutual emission of spirits which still seeking the destruction of each other's person those of the Murderer being the strongest because still living cause a commotion in the Blood of the dead which thereupon breaks forth at the out-let of the wound Campanella attributes it to the sense where-with all things are indu'd and which still remains in these dead Bodies so that having a sense of their Murderers and perceiving them near hand they suffer two very different motions Trembling and Anger which cause such a commotion in the Blood that it flows forth at the wound For the spirits which during life had such perceptions as were necessary for their receiving and obeying the Soul's commands retain somewhat thereof after death and are capable of discerning their friends and their enemies The Third said If this opinion concerning the emanation of spirits whether by Sympathy or Antipathy be true it will follow That one who hath done a Murder with gun-shot cannot be discover'd by this sign and that one slain in his Wife's arms and in a crowd of his friends that endeavor'd to defend his life will bleed rather in
Causes The Second said That the Remora worketh the same Effect upon the Ship that the Torpedo doth upon the hand of the Fisher which becomes stupid when he toucheth the same with a long pole Now of this effect of Remora is not hard to be accounted for if we follow the Principles of Campanella and those who allow sense to all even the most gross corporeal things But this opinion being little received 't is better to say that whereas all natural things subsist only by the vicissitude of motion and rest wise Nature who is the principle of both hath judiciously dispenc'd them that they are found differently in some things and in others and that for the good and ornament of the Universe which requires that as they are bodies immoveable by reason of their scituation or use to wit the Earth and the Poles of the Heavens others always in motion to wit the Heavens Rivers Air and Fire and others endued with an attractive vertue as the Loadstone and Amber so She hath given others a Quality contrary to this Namely the Remora that of stopping the motion of a Ship and because motion and rest are contrary one to the other their principles are no less as well those that are effective of motion as those which cause rest but 't is better to explicate them by their sensible and indubitable effects than by reasons ordinarily frivolous and impertinent The Third said 'T is no rare thing for Ships to be staid in the main Sea whatever pains the Mariners take to make them go forward and how favourable soever the Wind may be the cause whereof is no other but the contrary motion of the waves of the Sea especially in streights and narrow places where there are strong Currents which probably stopp'd Caligula's Ship and those other mentioned in History rather than this little Fish which 't is credible can send so strong a Vertue from its small body as to fix and check the far greater and oftentimes irresistible force of the Winds and Sea Unless you had rather attribute this retardment to the mucosity and other foulnesses wherewith Ships are crusted in long Voyages which hinder their advancing and this Fish being sometimes found in those mucous humidities people mistake it for the cause though it no wise contributed thereunto The Fourth maintain'd according to the opinion of Francastorius That 't is not possible for so small a Fish as the Remora to stop a great Ship at full sail but that this Effect is occasion'd by Rocks indu'd with a Quality like that of the Loadstone upon which this Fish using to reside when a Ship passes near them their Adamantine Vertue attracts the same towards them whence the same thing happens by these two violent motions viz. that wherewith the Vessel is driven along in the main Sea and the attraction of these Rocks as when two equal forces draw a weight two several ways the thing remains unmov'd so that this fish is not the cause but only the sign of this retardment The fifth said That if there were any such magnetical vertue in this case the nails and iron-iron-works of the Ship so stay'd would rather be taken away than its course stopt the latter being more hard to do than the former since a little force sufficeth to pull a nail out of a Ship whose impetuous motion 't is not possible to withhold whence Archimedes's his drawing of a Ship out of the Port into the Market-place by his endless serue pass'd for one of the goodliest secrets of the Mechanicks though indeed it be nothing to the present enquiry And the truth is this strange effect may best be attributed to a hidden property and singular quality of this Fish which being always found sticking to the stopped Ships is more probably the cause of that impediment than any unknown Rocks which ought to do the like to all Vessels that approach them if there were any such For t is a vanity condemn'd by the most intelligent in the secrets of Nature to presume to give valid reasons thereof whilst we have none for the most sensible and ordinary effects for want of knowing the last and proximate differences which constitute every thing in its Essence and distinguish it from others it being easie to know that the Remora after the example of many other which act by a propriety of their form produceth this effect without being needful to trouble our selves to find out the means it imploys in order thereunto CONFERENCE CCXI. Of Negroes NAture loves variety so well that she is not contented with producing a great number of Species of all sorts of Animals differing chiefly according to the Climates which produce them but she hath also pleas'd her self in an innumerable diversity of individuals especially as to colour as cannot be call'd an Accident in Blackamores but an inseparable property which distinguishes them from other men and constitutes the nature of Negroes in whom the Sun's heat produceth an effect contrary to that of his light this brightning the other obscuring the subject upon which it acts Yet it acteth not alike upon all Subjects since the same Star Aethiopian whitens linnen and wax but this blackness happens to the Aethiopians because moisture exceeds and in a manner extinguisheth heat just as we see it come to pass in Charcoals Gangreens and the parts of man's body when struck with Lightning For if the first Quality would take colours no doubt cold would be white as we may judg by Water Ice Snow Gray Hairs and the Animals that live under the Artick Pole which are all white though of the same Species with ours of another colour as Bears and Hares Which is further prov'd by Herbs which grow white under ground and lose as much of their heat and bitterness as they partake of such whiteness witness the stalks of Hartichoaks and Savoury Hot things would be red and of the colour of Fire which we see gives that colour to faces formerly pale to hot Iron and burning Wood but a superfluous humidity supervening stifles and extinguishes this heat and leaves behind it the colour of corruption as we see the whitest skin grows black by heat upon travelling Southwards the contrary happening to those that go Northwards The Second said That if heat alone made Blackamoors those that are most expos'd to the Sun-beams should be the blackest but they are not so there being many Nations of the New World where it is so hot that they go all naked of an olive colour whereas in Guiney Aethiopia and other places inhabited by Moors they are cloth'd and feel more cold And because this colour may be ascrib'd to the reciprocation of heat and cold which is more likely to alter men's bodies in all other qualities than in a permanent one there are found both black and white people under the same parallels and elevation of the Pole as in the Isle of Sumatra where the Inhabitants are white Wherefore this colour must
Motions of Nature which proceed from the instinct imprinted by her in all things of loving their good which is their rest and natural place which till they have attain'd they are in perpetual disquiet and whereas the heavier a Body is the more parts there are in it concern'd in the pursuance of that good it is not to be wonder'd if it happens to them as to divers sollicitors in the same cause who press it more earnestly than one alone would do We may therefore say that the same natural instinct that makes the Mulberry-tree expect till the cold weather be over before it buds and the Halcyons till the tempests be past before they build their nests and makes them to secure their young ones before the Rain may much rather cause the most massie and weighty Bodies to make more haste For these fore-seeing that the Centre is not able to lodge all the Bodies tending thereto endeavour to get to it as soon as they can adding to their haste the nearer they approach it But the most certain reason of this speedier Motion is the general rule that the more the Cause is increas'd the more is the Effect augmented whence it follows that if weight be the Cause of Motion downwards the greater the weight is the more intense ought to be the Motion CONFERENCE CCXVI Of the Silk-worm THe use of Silk was brought over from the East-Indies into Europe above a thousand years since and was particularly introduc'd into Italy by two Religous Men who brought thither the grain of it somewhat above three hundred years since in which Country of Italy that commodity hath been much cultivated and that upon several accounts as the preciousness of it the easie transportation from one place to another by reason of its lightness And lastly for that it is one of the principal instruments of Luxury which never wanted Partizans and Abettors in any Age not to mention the great advantages and wealth attending the manufacture of it The Latine word Sericum is receiv'd from that of Seres an Oriental people who were more sedulous in the cultivation of it than any other and the same thing hath happen'd to this as to many other excellent productions deriv'd from mean and despicable Principles For the Animal from whose labour we have the silk is an Insect as are all those which spin to wit the Spider and the Caterpillar and it differs in nothing from this latter save that the Caterpillar hath a little hairiness and the silk of the Silk-worm is stronger than the web of the Caterpillar and of another colour but as to figure and bulk there is little difference between them Whereto may be added that their production is much at one as being as it were hatch'd of certain eggs living on leaves enclosing themselves in certain webs out of which they make their way after they are become a kind of Butterflies by a strange Metamorphosis which forces them from one extremity to another that is from the nature of Reptiles to that of Volatiles which transformation is such as were it not for the frequency of it might be plac'd among the greatest miracles of Nature considering the great difference there is between those two forms And that indeed is such as hath given some occasion to doubt whether the Silkworm becoming a Butterfly did not change its Species as it would be true were it not that every thing produces its like and the Silkworm deriving its birth from the seed of the Butterfly it is an argument that both are of the same Species Thus much as to their progress The Kingdom of Spain commonly furnishes us with the best grain or seed of these worms which are like heads of pins but black or resembling Rape-seed somewhat flatted on both sides This grain sometime in the Month of April being put between two warm pillows or expos'd to the Sun enclos'd in the linings of ones cloaths or otherwise chafed by a moderate heat but without any moisture there are produc'd of it little certain worms of the same colour that is black at their first coming forth which by reason of their smalness as resembling the points of needles pass through certain little holes made in a paper wherewith they are cover'd and fasten themselves on the Mulbery-leaves which are also placed on the said paper full of little holes upon which leaves all the best grain being hatch'd within five or six days goes creeping after the first worm that gets out of her shell all that is hatch'd afterwards never coming to any good These worms are thence transported with the leaves laid upon little boards or hurdles into a temperate place and dispos'd in a lightsom and spacious room where they are entertain'd with fresh leaves twice a day among which those of the white Mulbery makes finer silk than those of the black for want whereof the leaves of the Rose-bush Lettice and some others may be used but though the Worm makes a shift to subsist by that nourishment yet either it will not spin at all or the Silk will be like the web or clue wrought by the Caterpillars Thus it feeds for the space of forty days during which it becomes grey and changes its colour four times not eating for some days before each change by reason of the fulness it is then sensible of The Worm is subject to certain diseases and those oblige such as have the care of them to remove them out of one room into another and that even when they are dying in great quantities Perfume Incense Benjamin Vinegar and Wine recovering and comforting them as also the smell of broyl'd Bacon To prevent which Diseases and the assaults of Flies and Pismires who will make havock among them they are very carefully to be kept clean the boards on which the leaves lie to be rubb'd with wormwood or sprinkled with Wine which must be well dry'd up before they come near them all moisture being hurtful to them as also salt or the hands that have handled it All harsh sounds as those of the discharging of Muskets Bells and Trumpets destroys them nay the strong breaths of those who come near them especially such as have eaten or handled Garlick or Onions are very prejudicial to them When their time of spinning draws nigh which is about six weeks after their being first alive at which time they are about the bigness of a man's little finger more transparent than they use to be and the little snowt so lengthen'd as that it represents the form of a Nose the Animal by an extraordinary motion expresses the inconvenience it endures by reason of its burden Then is it cleans'd oftner and there is so much the less given it to eat and afterwards they set on the boards some dry'd branches of Heath Broom or Vines and above all of Birch as being the most delicate and least prickly least it should prick the Worm or entangle the Silk Then you shall see them
or destroying of these will contribute to the weakning of the Soul and instead of making a Prophet the transformation will be into some Hypochondriack or extravagant Phanatick as it happens to those who macerate their Bodies by an indiscreet zeal insomuch that having not the perfect knowledg of that Science it were more expedient that men had a recourse to the ordinary means of Morality to regulate the Passions of the Soul and bring her to the pursuance of Virtue Now according to the rules of Morality even those who are good are much inclin'd to evil and find it no easie matter to oppose it The Seventh said That it is as hard a matter for the vicious person to do well as it is for the virtuous to do ill in regard that the inclination which the good man hath to do good and eschew evil is equal to that of the wicked person which is always bent to do evil it being very difficult for him to embrace Virtue by shunning Vice by reason of the aversion which he hath to that which is good And to make this the more clear we commonly find some persons so naturally addicted to the exercises of Virtues that what they do seems to be without any study Whence it may be deduc'd that the first seeds of Virtue and Good proceed from those natural Dispositions which are called Inclinations and consequently the difficulties in both are concluded to be equal And that may also be observ'd in Socrates who himself acknowledg'd that his natural Inclinations were so bent to Vice that if the dictates of Philosophy had not wrought things in him beseeming the person whom the Oracle had declar'd wise he would have been carry'd away with sensual Appetites according to his natural Inclinations there being some Natures truly Heroick and ever doing well and others brutish and always inclin'd to evil To this we are to add the consideration of the persons their qualities and age inasmuch as there being somewhat particular in any of these circumstances it changes the resolution in the general proposition which being universal and of a large extent it were necessary in order to the finding out of the Truth that we confin'd our selves to these circumstances yet still following the forementioned opinion For as fire finds no difficulty to ascend no more than the water does to flow downwards and make towards its centre so every one complying with his own Inclinations stands in an equal bent towards good and evil without any trouble or difficulty but to proceed contrary to that motion the virtuous person finds the trouble attending the doing of a evil action equal to that of the vicious in doing a bad one The Eighth said That this bent of the Inclinations ceases in those who are one while inclin'd to the doing of that which is good another to the doing of that which is evil as may be observ'd in Nero who during the first five years of his Government was the mildest of any of the Emperours yet afterwards gave himself over to all manner of Cruelty For what can be said of this alteration and if a man be naturally inclin'd to good Why is not the same inclination continued in him Does this inconstancy proceed from the mind or from the body If it proceeds from the mind since the powers thereof have a certain knowledge of the Good Why does it not embrace that which is good answerably to its knowledge of the same If it proceeds from the body since this hath a dependance on the mind why does it not follow the impressions which it derives from the other The Professors of Astrology who give so much credit to their Influences affirm that these diversities proceed from those Constellations whereby that change is caused and by which the Will is moved and receives a bent either to good or evil but if Reason have the sovereignty it ought to be conformable and produce such effects as are answerable thereto There is therefore a great probability that the causes of good and bad actions are to be referr'd to the regeneration of the Elect and the reprobation of the wicked who are left to the pursuance of their sensuality and thence it will follow that it shall be as hard for a truly-devout person to sin as for a reprobate to do well and so the Question is to be referr'd to the decision of Theology CONFERENCE CCXXIII. Whether a piece of Iron laid upon the Cask prevents Thunder from marring Wine contain'd within it and why SInce we are always to begin with that which is undenyable in matter of fact whereby we are assur'd that a piece of Iron laid upon a vessel full of Wine prevents its being corrupted by Thunder which without that precaution would cause it some prejudice which precaution hath also the same effect in preserving the Eggs which the Hen sits upon and in keeping Milk from turning all the difficulty of this Question is only in the latter part of it and that is to find out the reason thereof which must either be referr'd to some occult vertue in the Iron or to some of its manifest qualities If it be said that this is wrought by the manifest qualities of that metal it seems requisite that the Iron should be within the vessel with the Wine that so it may oppose the poyson of the Air whereby it is infected But on the other side to alledge those occult vertues is an argument of humane ignorance inasmuch as they are to act by the interposition of some means So that all things considered it is more rationally affirm'd to be an effect proceeding from the manifest qualities of the Iron which prevent and hinder that bad impression of the Air. But to give a more evident reason hereof we are to consult Astrology That Science teaches us that Mars by which Planet Iron is designed hath its House in Aries which is the sign of the Ram and the Naturalists observe that the Sun entring into that House causes the sap and moisture of the Vine to ascend an evident sign that there is a correspondence between Wine and Iron and that the one preserves the other by the natural Sympathy there is between them And to make it appear that the Influences exercise their vertues even upon things inanimate yet deriv'd from the root of what had been Vegetable or Animal we find that Wine though it be carried ever so far is subject to an observable alteration when the grapes of the same Vine are near their maturity that distance of Places and Climates not obstructing the Union and Correspondence which there is between the whole and its part which cannot be joyned together save only by means of the Celestial Influences The Second said That the foremention'd reason deduc'd from Astrology was not evident and that there is more subtilty in it than Truth and consequently that it is to be sought with greater probability to find it out of Natural Philosophy which treats of
Xenophanes on the two latter joyntly Hippon on Fire and Water Parmenides on Fire and Earth Empedocles and most of the other Naturalists on those four Elements together which yet as some affirmed could not execute the function of Principles without the assistance of other Superiours such as Hesiod maintains to be Chaos and Love Antiphanes Silence and Voice the Chaldaeans Light and Darkness the Mathematicians Numbers and among others the Tetrad which the Pythagoreans affirm to be the source of all things the Peripateticks Matter Form and Privation Anaxagoras the Similar Parts and Democritus his Atoms so called by reason of their smalness which renders them invisible and incapable of being distinguish'd and divided into other lesser Particles though they have quantity and are of so great a bulk as to be thereby distinguish'd from a Mathematical Point which hath not any as being defin'd to be what hath not any part and what is so imperceptible and small that it can hardly fall under our External Senses but is only perceivable by reason The same thing may also be said of the other qualities of these Atoms which Epicurus who receiv'd them from Democritus as he had the knowledge of them from Leucippus and he again from one Moschus Phoenician who liv'd before the Trojan Warr made it not so much his business to lay them down for the first Causes and general Principles of Natural Things as to take away the four common Elements since he does not deny but that these are constitutive parts of the world and whatever is comprehended therein But his main work is to maintain that they not the first seeds and immediate Principles thereof as consisting themselves of Atoms or little Bodies so subtile and small that they cannot be broken or made less and being the most simple and next pieces whereof mixt bodies are made up and whereto they are afterwards reducible by dissolution there is some reason to give them the denomination of the first material and sensible principles of natural bodies The Second said That if these Atoms be allow'd to be the principles of natural bodies these last will be absolutely unknown to us as being made up of infinite principles which being incapable of falling under our knowledge it will be impossible for us to come to that of the mixt bodies which are to consist of them Whence it will follow that though the Atoms should be such as the Philosophers would perswade us they are yet would not our Understanding which cannot comprehend any thing but what is finite be ever the more satisfy'd since it would not be able to conceive them nor consequently the things which should be produc'd of them Nor is it to be imagin'd that those things would differ among themselves since that according to their sentiment those little chimerical bodies are not any way distinguish'd but all of the like nature and of the same substance The Third said That though there be not any essential difference in the Atoms yet is it certain That they make remarkable diversity in the production of things by the properties and different qualities that are in each of them whereof there are two kinds Common and Proper The proper are Largeness of Bulk Figure Motion and Resistance the common are Concourse Connexion Situation and Order which are generally competible to all Atoms as the four others are proper and particular to them Their bulk is not to be consider'd as if they had any considerable quantity there being no Atom how great soever it may be but is infinitely less then the least body in the World being for that reason so imperceptible that it is impossible for the sight to distinguish it Yet does not that hinder but that they are bodies and consequently have quantity which is a property inseparable from bodies as Mites Hand-worms and such other little Animals which by their extreme litleness elude our sight do nevertheless consist of diverse parts miraculously discoverable by Magnifying-glasses nay to the observance of Veins Arteries Nerves and such like obscure parts answerable to those which reason obliges us to admit though our senses cannot attain thereto It being the property of figure to follow quantity which it determinates and qualifies it is necessary that if the atoms are different as to bulk they should be the same also as to figure which being observable when bodies are broken into great pieces and those appearing with superficies angles and points diversly figur'd they must still retain some figure even after they are pounded in a mortar into small parcels and particles though our senses by reason of their weakness are not able to comprehend it To the same weakness it is to be attributed that we are not able to discern the diversity of figures in grains of corn and other seeds which seem to be in a manner alike though they are not such no more than the leaves of Trees and Plants Nay even in Drops of water and Eggs though in appearance there is a likeness so great that it is come into a Proverb yet is there so remarkable a diversity when it is strictly observ'd that there were heretofore in the Island of Delos certain people so expert that among several Eggs they would tell which had been laid by such or such a Hen. The hair of our heads a thing to some would seem incredible have particular figures whereby they are distinguish'd one from another The figures of Atoms are of that rank as are also those of the Moats which are seen playing and dancing up and down in the beams of the Sun when darted in at a narrow passage for though they seem to be all round yet examin'd with that instrument which magnifies the species of things we find in them an infinite number of other figures In like manner is it requisite that the Atoms should have the same difference of figures that they may the more fitly concur to the mixture and generation of Bodies To that end the maintainers of this opinion affirm that some are round some oval some oblong some pointed some forked some concave some convex some smooth and even some rough and rugged and of other such like figures as well regular as irregular in order to the diversity of their motions Of these there are three kinds assigned according to the first the Atom moves downwards by its own weight according to the second it moves upwards and according to the third it moves indirectly and from one side to another These two last are violent motions but the first is natural to the Atom to which Epicurus attributes a perpetual motion which causing it to move incessantly towards the lowest place it still makes that way of its own nature till such time as in its progress it hath met with other Atoms which coming to strike against it if they are the stronger they force it upwards or of one side according to the part of it which had receiv'd the shock and so clinging one
to another they make several mixtures as when they come to separate after their union they are the causes of the corruption of mixt bodies And these bodies have so much the more Resistance which is the last property of these Atoms the more dense and solid these last are as on the contrary when they are less dense and solid by reason of the vacuity there is between their parts the bodies consisting of them have so much the less vigour and force to oppose external injuries The Fourth said That there is not any better instance whereby the nature of Atoms can be explicated then those little Motes which move up and down the air of a Chamber when the Sun-beams come into it at some little hole or cranny For from this very instance which is so sensible it may easily be concluded not only that they are bodies which have a certain bulk and quantity how little and indivisible soever it may be but also that they are in continual motion by means whereof as those little corpuscula or Motes incessantly move and strike one against another and are confusedly intermixt one among another so the Atoms by their perpetual agitation and concourse cause the mixtures and generations of all natural things So that all consider'd it is as ridiculous on the other side to affirm that they are only imaginary principles because they are not seen as to maintain that those little Motes are not in the air because they are not perceiv'd to be there in the absence of the Sun-beams which we must confess renders them visible but with this assurance that they are nevertheless there even when they are not discern'd to be there The Fifth said That it is certain there are abundance of bodies in Nature which are in a manner imperceptible to our senses and yet must be granted to be real bodies and consequently endow'd with length breadth profundity solidity and the other corporeal qualities Such as these are among others the sensible Species which continually issue out of the Objects and are not perceiv'd by the senses but only so far as they are corporeal and material especially the Odours exhaling from certain bodies which after their departure thence in process of time decay and wither Of this we have instance in Apples and other Fruits which grow wrinkled proportionably to their being drain'd of those vaporous Atoms whereof they were at first full which evaporate in a lesser or greater space of time the more closely those little bodies stick one to another or the more weakly they are joyned together Nay the intentional Species how sublimated soever they be by the defaecation made by the agent Intellect are nevertheless bodies as are also the Animal Spirits which are charged therewith and the vital and natural whereby the former are cherish'd In like manner Light the beams of the Sun and of other Stars their Influences their Magnetick Vertues and other such Qualities observable in an infinite number of things between which there is a mutual inclination and correspondence or antipathy cannot be imagin'd to act otherwise then by the emission of certain little bodies which being so small and subtile that they are incapable of further division may with good reason be called the Elements and material Principles of all Bodies since there is not any one but consists of them The Sixth said That the concourse of these Atoms being accidental if we may credit Epicurus we cannot attribute thereto the causes of the generations happening in this World inasmuch as an accidental cause not being able to produce a regular effect such as is that of Nature in Generation it is ridiculous to attribute it rather to these Atoms than to some other cause which is such per se and always regular in its operations such as is Nature her self But what further discovers the absurdity of that opinion is this that it thinks it not enough to refer the diversity of the other effects which are observ'd in all natural bodies to that of the Atoms whereof they consist but pretends also by their means to give an account of that of our Spirits which those Philosophers would represent unto us made of those orbicular atoms and accordingly easily mov'd by reason of that round figure and that those in whom it is most exact are the most ingenious and inventive persons as others are dull and blockish because their Spirits have a lesser portion of those circular Atoms But this speculation may be ranked among pure chimaera's since that the functions of our Understanding being absolutely spiritual and immaterial have no dependence on the different constitutions of those little imaginary bodies nay though there were any correspondence between them and the actions of our minds their round figure would not be so much the cause of our vivacity as might be the pointed or forked as being more likely to penetrate into and comprehend the most difficult things than the circular which would only pass over them without any fixt fastning on them CONFERENCE CCXXXI Whether the King 's Evil may be cur'd by the touching of a Seventh Son and why THough this noisom Disease sometime fastens on several parts of the body yet is there not any more sensible of its malice than the neck which by reason of its being full of glandules is extreamly troubled therewith which happens as well by reason of their thin and spongy constitution as their nearness to the brain from which they receive the phlegmatick and excrementitious humours more conveniently than any of the other parts can be imagin'd to do which are at a greater distance from it And yet these last notwithstanding that distance are extremely troubled therewith nay sometimes to such excess that if we may credit Johannes Langius in the first Book of his Medicinal Epistles a Woman at Florence had the Evil in one of her Thighs which being got out weigh'd sixty pound and a Goldsmith of Amberg had another of the same bigness in a manner neer his Knee And what is much to be observ'd is that though the Evil seems to be only external yet is it commonly preceded by the like swellings which ly hid within and whereof those without are only the marks which observation is confirm'd by the dissections made of those who are troubled with it in whose bodies after their death there are abundance of these Evils whereof the Glandules of the Mesenterium and the Pancreas which is the most considerable of any about Man's Body are full and which are commonly produc'd by Phlegm the coldness and viscosity whereof do indeed contribute to their rebellion but it is very much augmented by the external and common Causes such as are Air Aliment and Waters infected with some malignant qualities which render it Endemious and peculiar to certain Nations as for instance the Inhabitants of the Alps and the Pyrenean Mountains especially the Spaniards who are more infected with this foul disease than any others which is also
into the Minds of the vulgar with whom the wisest being oblig'd to comply in matter of Language it comes to pass at last that what was before but a common saying finds a degree of assent among the most considerate Nay what is not any longer to be endur'd they think it not enough to maintain this groundless perswasion but there are some so ridiculous as to derive a new kind of Divination from it which they call Amniomantia whereby they promise to foretel what-ever happiness or unhappiness should befall a Child newly born by the colour of that Membrane whereof they affirm that the redness signifies good success and that the blackness or blewness of it denotes the contrary To which they add another kind of Divination call'd Omphalomantia which teaches them to judge by the knots of the string whereby the Child is fasten'd to the After-burthen how many Children more the Mother shall have who according to their judgement will be Males if those intersections be of a colour inclining to black and Females if they be white which Observations are not only impertinent but also impious and superstitious The Third said That the common perswasion of the happiness attending Children born with these Coifs is well-grounded provided that it be taken in the sense wherein the Physicians who in all probability are more likely to be the Authors of it than those simple Women who receiv'd it from them would have it to be understood to wit that those who thus born cover'd with that fortunate Membrane in regard they are not put to so much trouble nor suffer so great violence in the passage by reason of its being open and easie come forth cloath'd out of their Mothers Wombs without being oblig'd to leave behind them the Membranes wherein they had been enclos'd in the Matrix whereas most other Children are forc'd to quit them at their coming into the World by reason of the Obstructions they meet with in their passage through those narrow streights which consequently is so much the more painful and laborious to them than it is to such as are coifed who are not to be imagin'd ever the more happy as to the remainder of their lives whereof the good or bad conduct are the true Causes of their happiness or unhappiness and not that Coif which can neither produce nor signifie them The Fourth said That those Children who are born thus coifed are not only more happy in their Birth but they are also such in all the actions of their lives as being commonly more peaceable and of a more quiet Constitution than such as leave that Membrane within their former lodgings who are accordingly more turbulent and restless and for that reason have not those insinuations whereby the former are recommended For in these the moderation of their manners and demeanour consequent to that of their humours gaining the hearts of all those with whom they converse raises them into the general esteem of all and so facilitates their accession to Honours and Employments it being certain that there may be some judgment made of the course of Life a Man is likely to take by the deportment of his Child-hood so is it no hard matter to give a ghess at the same by that of the Infant when he makes his first sally out of his Mothers Womb which is one of the most remarkable transactions of his Life Whence it may be inferr'd that that first coming abroad being free from the trouble and agitation whereof all others are sensible and which makes them forget their Vesture which is left behind by the way they ought accordingly to be dispenc'd from the misfortunes incident to others and enjoy a particular happiness The Fifth said That the most restless and most turbulent persons are commonly the most happy in this world whereas those who endeavour to walk according to the strict rules of Modesty and Reservedness do not carry on their business so well as the former do who confidently attempt any thing and imagine themselves the favourites of Fortune And thence it is that she on the other side is so assistant to them that though it be granted the Children born cloth'd are more meek and moderate than those who come into the World after the common rate yet would the clean contrary to what is pretended follow from it For instead of being cherish'd by Fortune it is seldom that she smiles on them but is much more kind to those stirring and tumultuary Spirits who many times obtain greater favours of her than they durst hope for had they demean'd themselves towards her with less earnestness and importunity The Sixth said That if every Man be the Artizan of his own Fortune those who are of the best Constitution and strongest Temper ought to be more happy than others whose irregularity of humors does manifestly cause that of their Actions and Fortunes Now the Children born with Cawls and Coifs about them seem to be less vigorous and of a weaker disposition than those who come into the World without any inasmuch as the latter being more earnest and violent are no sooner sensible of the time of their Deliverance but they courageously break through the Chains whereby they are detain'd the Membranes whereby they are encompass'd which those others having neither the Strength nor Courage to do it gives a great presumption that they will express but little upon other more pressing occasions and consequently they will content themselves with the mediocrity of their Conditions and not aspire to any thing extraordinary CONFERENCE CCXXXVII Of Antiperistasis SO great is the Indulgence of Nature that she thought it not enough to bestow Being and Existence on the things she hath produc'd but she hath also imprinted in them a strong Inclination to preserve it by fortifying them against the assaults of their Contraries the presence whereof sets them on such an edge that they become so much the more active And this is not only confirm'd in Animate Beings such as are Plants and Animals which vigorously oppose what-ever is hurtful to them by so powerful a Vertue that Men have been forc'd to find out a particular name for it to wit Antipathy but also in other Inanimate Bodies which generously stand upon the defensive when they are set upon by External Agents whose contrary qualities coming to engage against them they redouble their Forces and rally all together as it were into a Body the better to receive the Charge This is that which the Philosophers call Antiperistasis which is a vigorous resistance of the Subject caus'd by the contrariety of an Agent which encompasses it of all sides purposely to destroy or corrupt it It will be to no purpose to enter into any Dispute concerning the Existence of that which we call Antiperistasis but we shall lay it down for granted though it be contested by Cardan and some other Philosophers who maintain that Water Air and the other Subterraneous Bodies are not actually colder at
of Rome lest the corruption might be communicated to the neighbouring Houses but provided it should be done without the walls The Second said That though the general way of burying the dead now is to enterre them yet methinks that of burning them and preserving their ashes is more noble and honourable in regard the Fire excells the Earth in purity as far as it transcends it in its vicinity to Heaven the qualities whereof it communicates to the bodies it consumes purifying and preserving them from all putrefaction and making them so clear and transparent that according to the common opinion of Theology in the general conflagration the World and all bodies comprehended within it will be vitrify'd by means of the fire It is therefore more honourable to have our bodies consum'd by that Element then to have them devour'd by Worms and Putrefaction whereof fire being an enemy and the Embleme of Immortality there can be no better expedient to secure our deceas'd Friends from oblivion then that of burning their bodies whereof we have either the bones or ashes left which may be preserv'd whole Ages there being yet to be seen the Urns of the ancient Romans full of such precious deposita as those who put their Friends into the ground can never see Add to this that it is a rational thing to make a distinction between Man Beast which they do not who burying both treat them after the same manner whereas if Man's body were burnt and that of the Beast left to rot in the ground it would serve for a certain acknowledgment of the disproportion there is between them and that as the latter is of a mean and despicable condition it is accordingly dispos'd into the Earth which is under the other Elements and as it were the Common-shore of the World whereas the former being design'd for Immortatality Fire which is the most sensible Hieroglyphick thereof is more proper for it then the earth wherein if we were not carry'd away rather by opinion than reason and that Tyrant of three Letters in the Latin Tongue as a learned Author calls Custom did not corrupt our judgment it were more rational to bury the bodies of Malefactors then to burn them as is commonly done The Third said That if we may judge of the goodness of a thing by its Antiquity the way of interring the dead will carry it as having been from the beginning of the World Holy Scripture tell us that Abraham bought a Field for the burial of himself and his and that a dead body having been dispos'd into the Sepulchre where the bones of Elizeus were was rais'd to Life In other Histories we find that most Nations practis'd it especially the Romans till the time of Sylla who was the first whose Body was burnt at Rome which disposal of himself he order'd out of a fear he might be treated as Marius had been whose bones he caus'd to be taken out of the ground and cast into the River From that time they began to burn the Bodies of the Dead which continu'd till the Reign of the Antoninus's when the Custom of burying them came in again and hath since been us'd by all Nations whose universal consent gives a great presumption that this manner is to be preferr'd before any other Add to this that our Saviour would have his precious body so dispos'd and the Holy Church which is divinely inspir'd seems to mind us of the same thing when upon Ash-wednesday she tell us that we are dust and that into dust we shall return The Fourth said That there were five ways of disposing the dead One is to put them into the ground another to cast them into the water the third to leave them in the open air the fourth to burn them and the last to suffer them to be devour'd by Beasts This last is too inhumane to find any Abettors but among Barbarians Men are more careful to prevent the corruption of Water and Air without which they cannot live then to suffer carrions and dead carkasses which would cause infections and insupportable stinks so that the contest is only between Fire and Earth For my part I give the precedence to the former whose action is more expeditious than that of the other Elements which require a long time to consume dead bodies whereas Fire does it in an instant Whereto I may add this that there cannot be any other more likely expedient whereby men may secure themselves from those contagious infections which many times occasion diseases especially when they are attended by Malignancy Nay however it is to be wish'd whether dead bodies be buried or burnt that it should be done out of the City and that the Law of the Decemviri to wit Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve vrito were still punctually observ'd FINIS Of Sleep and how long it ought to be Which is the strongest thing in the World Of the Gowt Which Condition is most expedient for the acquisition of Wisedom Riches or Honour Of Glass Of Fucusses or Cosmeticks Of Tobacco Whether the Invention of Guns hath done more hurt than good Of Blood-letting Which is the most excellent of the Souls three Faculties Imagination Memory or Judgment Of Dew Whether it is expedient for Women to be Learned Whether it be good to use Chymical Remedies Whether the reading of Romances be profitable Of Talismans Whether a Country-life or a City-life is to be preferr'd Of Volcano's Which Age is most desirable Of Mineral Waters Whether it be better to Give than to Receive Of Antidotes Which is most communicative Good or Evil Why Animals cry when they feel Pain Whether it be expedient to have Enemies Of the Rain-bow Whether the Reading of Books is a fitter way for Learning than Vocal Instruction Of the Milky-way Which is most powerful Gold or Iron Of the cause of Vapours Which is less culpable Rashness or Cowardice
Lover's breast it self oftentimes remaining immovable And as he acts in a more noble way that moves without being mov'd because he resembles the end which is the noblest of all the Causes so he that loves resembles Matter which Desires all Forms expecting its perfection from them and consequently is inferior to the person that is lov'd as from whom he expects his felicity Even in Mutual Love he that begins is less perfect as confessing by that address some inviting accomplishments in the other who finds not any obligation to love him again but the consideration of gratitude For inferring the advantage of those that love from the nobleness of their subject as in Gods love to his Creatures and that of Parents to their Children I answer that 't is rather an effect of passion then of true love The Fourth said That Love is according to the variety of its Object Good three-fold considering either Profit or Pleasure or Vertue In the two former 't is better to be lov'd then to love but they are of no long duration those friends being wont to break as soon as they cease to find their market or the contentments which they receive from those to whom they pretended kindness In honest friendship which alone deserves that name being founded only upon vertue which makes it durable though 't is not possible to love without being lov'd because vertuous persons being alike mutually love and agree well together yet since this Amity before it can become such must be cemented by frequentation without which they cannot understand nor consequently love one another because love arises from knowledg it may be demanded whether the active love of him that loves first be better then the passive of the other who is lov'd Which Question I determine for the former because he contributes most to the ensuing friendship by laying the foundations of it For friendship as well as other things is preserv'd by the same means that produce it namely by loving And as the Agent is nobler then the Patient as concurring more considerably to the perfection of the work so he that loves being the Agent is more perfect then the Person lov'd who is the Patient Also to love is to wish and do good to be lov'd is to receive it But 't is more honorable and vertuous to give then to receive which is a shameful action and therefore he that receives never desires witnesses Hence as he that do's a benefit loves more then he that receives it as the Artificer loves his work more then his work loves him and a Creditor desires his Debtor's safety more then on the contrary in like manner he that loves is more excellent then he that is lov'd Love being not so much a testimony of indigence as abundance because 't is a desire of communicating and the more goodness a Being hath the more it is communicative and diffusive CONFERENCE CXLIX Of Hair OF the different parts of Man's Body some are absolutely necessary others only for convenience or ornament as the Hair wherewith wise Nature hath adorn'd the Head his noblest part whose nudity would have been indecorous whence people are asham'd of baldness which is also threatned by God as a curse to the Daughters of Sion The good man Elisha had sufficient patience to endure Jezabel's persecutions for a long time but not to support the affront of the little Children of Bethel who call'd him bald-pate and upon his curse forty two of them were torn in pieces by two Bears which came out of the neighbouring Woods God by that means avenging the injury done to the noblest part of this Prophet namely the Head upon which 't is also the custom to place Crowns and because 't is the Mansion of the Rational Soul our Lord forbids swearing by it The Superincumbent Hair receives by that vicinity some particular and mysterious dignity which hath made it so esteem'd that not onely the Ancients offer'd it in sacrifice to their Deities especially when they were toss'd by Tempests of Sea and burnt it upon the death of Friends but also the Nazarens who were the Religious or Monasticks among the Jews were particularly prohibited by God to cut it wherein likewise Sampson's strength Absolom's Beauty and according to the Poets Nisus's happiness consisted But above all there is a certain Majesty in the Beard which is reserv'd onely to Man as best suting with the gravity of his manners A large Beard was ever counted the character of Wisdom and as such chosen by Philosophers as a badge of their profession Hence Diogenes to one that ask'd him Why he wore so long a Beard answerd To the end that beholding it I may remember that I am a Man not a Woman For though Wisdom and Folly be found in all Ages and there be as many old fools as young hair-brains yet the Beard is a sign of Experience which principally renders Men wise Natural Reason seems also to prove that those that have Beards are wiser and less impetuous than those that have not yet put them forth inasmuch as the fumes and fuliginosities which are the matter of Hair being still inclos'd in the latter make them more inconsiderate and rash Yea were it onely for shew I should conclude in favor of great Beards which at least have this good that they make Men appear wise though they be not so And as Lycurgus said of long Hair that it adds handsomness to them that are handsome and covers the deformities of them that are not whom also it renders terrible to their Enemies so large Beards serve for Ornament to those that are already wise and make them considerable that are not so overmuch The Second said Hair is the Symbol of Thought deriv'd from the same Brain and as various in conceit and fashion Nations having chang'd modes for Hair and Clothes accordingly as they have fancy'd more becommingness and sutableness in one fashion than in another Four hundred years together there was no Barber at Rome the first being carry'd thither from Sicily by Ticinius Menas Anno V. C. 454 and after that time 't was accounted with them a note of barbarity and extream desolation to let their Hair and Beards grow as Augustus did after the defeat of Varus The French have been as mutable in this matter as in any other Their Kings of the two first Races wearing long bushes of Hair in token of liberty And since Francis the First who shav'd his Hair upon occasion of a wound in his Head and let his Beard grow to hide the deformity of scarrs remaining in his Face after other wounds short Hair and long Beards began to be in request and continued so till our Age wherein Periwigs are more the mode than ever which being to be grounded upon convenience or seemliness I see nothing that can justifie the great bush but Caprichio and Example For Hair being a superfluous Excrement its exorbitant greatness cannot but be incommodious and prejudicial to Health
think 't is from some hideous Phantasms irregularly conceiv'd in the Brain as a Mola or a Monster is in the womb which Phantasms arising from a black humor cause Sadness and Fear a Passion easily communicable because conformable to the Nature of Man who consisting of a material and heavy Body hath more affinity with the Passions that deject him as Fear doth than with those which elevate him as Hope and Ambition do The moral cause of Panick Terror is Ignorance which clouds and darkens the light of the Soul whence the most ignorant as Children and Women are most subject to this Fear and Souldiers who are the more ignorant sort being taken out of the Country and from the dregs of the people become easily surpriz'd with it and by the proneness of Men to imitation upon the least beginning it finds a great accession and familiarity in Humane Nature The Fifth said That the cause of this Terror may be a natural prescience our Souls have of the evil which is to befall us which is more manifest in some than in others as appear'd in Socrates who was advertis'd of what-ever important thing was to befall him by his familiar Spirit or good Angel Now if there be any time wherein those Spirits have liberty to do this 't is when we are near our End our Souls being then half unloos'd from the Body as it comes to pass also at the commencement of a battel through the transport every one suffers when he sees himself ready either to die or overcome CONFERENCE CCI. Of the Water-drinker of Germain's Fair. THis Person is of a middle Stature hath a large Breast as also a Face especially his Fore-head very great Eyes and is said to be sixty years old though he appears to be but about forty He was born in the Town of Nota in the Island of Maltha and is nam'd Blaise Manfrede They that have observ'd him in private Houses and upon the Theatre relate that he makes his experiment not only every day but oftentimes twice in one afternoon Moreover vomiting so freely as he does he is always hungry when he pleases His Practise is very disagreeing from his publish'd Tickets wherein he promises to drink a hundred quarts of water but he never drinks four without returning it up again His manner is thus He causes a pail full of warm water and fifteen or twenty little glasses with very large mouths to be brought to him then he drinks two or three of these glasses full of water having first washt his mouth to shew that there is nothing between his teeth Afterwards for about half a quarter of an hour he talks in Italian which time being pass'd he drinks three or four and twenty more of the said glasses and thereupon spouts forth of his mouth with violence a red water which seems to be wine but hath only the colour of it This water appears red as it comes out of his mouth and yet when it is spouted into two of his glasses it becomes of a deep red in one and of a pale red in the other and changing the situation of his glasses on the left side of his mouth to the right and of those on the right to the left these colours always appear different in the same glass namely the one of a deep red and the other yellow or Citron-color Some of the water is of the color of pall'd wine and the more he vomits the clearer and less colour'd the water is He hath often promis'd to bring up Oyl and Milk but I never saw nor heard that he did it This done he sets his glasses to the number of fifteen or sixteen upon a form or bench to be seen by every one After which he drinks more water in other glasses and brings it up again either clear water or Orenge flower water or Rose-water and lastly Aqua Vitae which are manifest by the smell and by the burning of the Aqua Vitae having been observ'd to keep this order always in the ejection of his liquors that red water comes up first and Aqua Vitae last He performs this Trick with thirty or forty half glasses of water which cannot amount to above four quarts at most then having signifi'd to the people that his Stomack although no Muscle which is the instrument of voluntary motion obeys him he casts the same water up into the Air with its natural colour so impetuously that it imitates the Casts of water in Gardens to the great admiration of the Spectators who for six weâ—ks together were seldom fewer than three hundred daily For my part I find much to admire in this action For though men's Stomacks be of different capacities and some one person can eat and drink as much as four others yet I see not possibly where this fellow should lodge so much water And again he seems rather to powr water into a Tun than to swallow it though the conformation of the Gullet doth not consist with such deglutition Besides vomiting is a violent action and yet most facile in this Drinker And as to the order of this Evacuation 't is certain that all things put into the Stomack are confounded together therein so that Concoction begins by Mixtion and yet this fellow brings up what-ever he pleases as 't were out of several vessels so that he undertakes to eat a Sallad of several sorts of Herbs and Flowers and to bring them up all again in order Moreover what can be more prodigious than this mutation of Colours Smells and Substances And indeed they say he hath sometimes fear'd to be question'd for Sorcery But the greatest wonder is that smartness and violence wherewith he spouts out water from his Stomack not laterally which is the ordinary manner of vomiting but upwards which is a motion contrary to heavie bodies as water is Some speculative person that had read in Saint Augustin that a Man's being turn'd into a Horse by the power of Imagination might refer the cause of all these wonders to that faculty which daily producing new shapes upon the Bodies of Children in their Mothers womb may with less strangeness produce in this Man the above-mention'd alteration of one colour into another And as for his facility of bringing up what-ever he hath swallow'd I can find no better Reason for it than Custom which in him is turn'd into Nature The Second said That Ignorance being the Mother of Admiration we begin less to admire as we proceed to more Knowledg Now if this Maltese were a Magician he would do more marvellous things and of more than one sort whereas all his power is confin'd only to the vomiting up of liquors which he drunk before and the faculty of his Stomack being determin'd to this single kind of action the same must be natural because that is the definition of natural powers Moreover no action ought to be accus'd of Magick till good Reasons have evinc'd it to surpass all the powers of Nature
which is very hard to prove because we know not how far they may reach And should we accuse of Magick every thing when we understand not the Causes almost all Natural Philosophy would be turn'd into superstition Again a Man that promises more than he can perform drinking but the twentieth part of what he boasts of and who can make but one sort of colour issue out of his mouth though he exposes several others to the Spectator's Eyes cannot pass for a great Sorcerer or refin'd Magician As for the easiness and violence where-with he casts water out of his Stomack at pleasure it cannot be either from Artifice or Custom alone which cannot put free and voluntary motions into parts wherein there is none nor procure new Organs necessary to this action and no Man being able to accustom himself to move his Ears at his pleasure unless the same be naturally dispos'd thereunto as Manfrede's Stomack is Now natural dispositions are only of two sorts some depend upon the Temperament which is incapable of this effect others belong to the Stomack as it is an Organical part namely a particular Conformation which may be easily conjectur'd from the example of ruminating Animals who when they list bring up their food out of their Stomack into their mouth An action not impossible to Men since Nature oftentimes by error gives one Species such a Conformation in some parts as is of right peculiar to another and accordingly the faculty of ruminating is found in divers Men. Aquapendens saw two to whom this action was more voluntary than that whereby we void our excrements when they importunately solicite us observing expresly that they were not constrain'd to it but by the pleasure which they took in it And the same Author likewise records that opening the Body of one that ruminated he found one Membrane of his Stomack more fibrous and strong than ordinary And the same is probably so in that of this Maltese since this voluntary motion can proceed only from such a Conformation In like manner these persons that have been able to move their Ears have been observ'd to have the Muscles behind them more fleshy than other Men. And our Conjecture is further confirm'd by the Instance of the Bladder whose Excretion is perform'd by the Pyramidal Muscles which oftentimes are deficient and in that case their office is supply'd by the carnous Membrane of the Bladder which is valid and performs the motions of a Muscle according to the opinion of the greatest Anatomists of this Age. So that what is so ordinary in the Bladder is not to be admir'd in the Stomack Besides that Custom may have much increas'd the strength and dexterity of this faculty and although it have not otherwise conduc'd in the least to the effect but only as founded upon a natural Disposition That all ruminating have not been able to do the like is because they neglected to increase the natural Disposition by use and practise and as to the diversity of colour and smells there is nothing therein but artifice and fallacy The Third said That what is here thought most admirable the drinking of a great quantity of Water is seen every day at Pougues and Forges where you shall have one Person drink sixty glasses and those that have seen the Stomach that hangs up in the Anatomical Theater of Leyden and is capable of seven quarts will not think it strange that this Maltese drinks much less As for the diversity of Liquors which he brings up discern'd by their several colours smells and the inflammability of the Aqua vitae I attribute it to the perfection of the reasonable soul which as well as all other forms imprints Dispositions in the matter this being universal that besides the Properties common to the whole Species there is a particular one in every Individual which distinguishes the same from others and comes from the last Character of the form That of the Maltese is to turn common Water into Wine Orenge-flower-water Rose-water and Aqua vitae For the diversity of matter and its dispositions signifies nothing as to the mutations introduc'd therein by the Forms though one may say that in common Water especially that of the Well all the Elements and the three Principles of Chymistry are found having its Salt from the Earth its Sulphur from the Bitumen and Naphtha wherewith the Caverns of the Earth and especially Wells abound and as for Mercury 't is nothing but water it self No wonder then if since every thing may be made of every thing by the Maxim of the most ancient Philosophers our Maltese fetches what he pleases out of his Stomack The Fourth wonder'd if this Maxim were true That every thing is made of every thing in the Maltese's Belly even without any distinction or preparation of the matter why this Water-drinker fetcht so great a circuit to get money since 't would be a shorter way for him to make it and even Gold it self by the same reason or at least he would make sale of his sweet Waters and not suffer the Perfumers to be at such charge in fetching them from far If he make it his excuse that he would not get vent for such an abundance why if there be no cheat in the thing hath he not taken occasion of the dearness of Wine in France this year to sell the Wine he makes in Paris But Experience renders it manifest that the Wine he promises is nothing but water and consequently he is less able to make Aqua vitae into which water cannot be turn'd but by first taking the nature of Wine and indeed there needs more wine to yield the quantity of Aqua vitae he pretends to bring up then he drinks water before he ejects it Besides Chymistry manifests that Aqua vitae is not made but only separated Nor can this change be a Property in the Malteses Stomack because all Properties are specifical and belong to all the Individuals of the same Species there being nothing peculiar in any man but a certain degree of indivisible temperament call'd Idio-syncrasie And if his temper be so hot as to turn common water in an instant into Aqua vitae 't is impossible to be cold enough to make Rose-water at the same time if it have any transmuting vertue it ought to turn all into one sort of Liquor because the same Agent never makes but the same Effect unless the Subject be diversifi'd by diversity of matter whereas here 't is all water from the same Spring Neither could this Drinker drink Well-water without intoxication because being turn'd into Aqua vitae the vapors thereof would mount up into his brain and so to prescribe him water in a Feaver would be no more refreshment to him then if one gave him Aqua vitae The fifth said That the diversity of colours and odors of the Liquor he ejects proceeds from the tincture of some mass of Essence extracted from the same materials which those