Chambers or as from the beds which appropriated unto them by an exact justnesse when they come back to their ancient habitations viz. to the pores which are left in the dead heads they accommodate themselves and amiably rejoyn and comensurate together The same happens when it rains after a long drouth for the earth immediately drinks up the water which had been drawn up by the Sun whereas any other strange liquor would enter with some difficulty Now that there are differing pores in bodies which seem to be homogeneous Monsieur Gassendi affirms it and undertakes to prove it by the dissolution of salts of differing natures in common water when saies he to this effect that when you have dissolved common salt as much as it can bear if you put onely a seruple more it will leave it entire in the bottom as if it were sand or playster neverthelesse it will dissolve a good quantity of salt-peter and though it toucheth not this salt it will dissolve as much of Armoniacall salt and so others of different figures In so much as I have observed elsewhere we see plainly by the aeconomy of Nature that bodies of the same figure use to mingle more strongly and unite themselves with more facility which is the reason why those that make a strong glue to glue together broken pots of porcelain or chrystal or such stuff do alwayes mingle with the glue the powder of that body which they endeavour to raccomodate And the Goldsmiths themselves when they go about to sodder together pieces of gold or of silver they mingle those bodies alwayes in their own dust Having hitherto run through the reasons and causes why bodies of the same nature draw one to another with greater facility and force than others and why they unite with more promptitude le ts now see according to our method how experience confirms this discourse for in natural things we must have recourse on dernier ressort to experience And all reasoning that is not supported so ought to be repudiated or at least suspected to be illegitimate T is an ordinary thing when one finds himself burnt as in the hand he holds it a good while as near the fire as he can and by this means the ignited atomes of the fire and of the hand mingling together and drawing one another and the stronger of the two which are those of the fire having the mastery the hand finds it self much eased of the inflammation which it suffered T is an ordinary remedy though a nasty one that they who have ill breaths hold their mouths open at the mouth of a privy as long as they can and by the reiteration of this remedy they find themselves cured at last the greater stink of the privy drawing unto it and carrying away the lesse which is that of the mouth They who have been pricked or bit by a Viper or Scorpion hold over the bitten or pricked place the head of a Viper or Scorpion bruised and by this means the poyson by a kind of filtration way went on to gain the heart of the party returns back to its principles and so leaves the party well recovered In time of common contagion they use to carry about them the powder of a toad and sometimes a living toad or spider shut up in a box or else they carry arsnick or some other venemous substance which draws unto it the contagious air which otherwise would infect the party and the same powder of toad draws unto it the poison of a pestilential cole The scurf or farcy is a venemous and contagious humor within the body of a horse hand a toad about the neck of the horse in a little bag and he will be cured infallibly the toad which is the stronger poyson drawing to it the venome which was within the horse Make water to evaporate out of a stove or other room close shut if there be nothing that draws this vapor it will stick to the walls of the stove and as it cools it recondenseth there into water but if you put a bason or bucquet full of water into any part of the stove it will attract all the vapor which filled the chamber and so doing no part of the wall will be wetted If you dissolve Mercury which resolving into smoak doth passe into the recipient put into the head of the limbick a little thereof and all the mercury in the limbick will gather there and nothing will passe into the recipient If you distill the spirit of salt or of vitriol or the baume of sulpher and leaving the passage free betwixt the spirit and the dead head whence it issued forth the spirits will return to the dead head which being fixt and not able to mount up draws them unto it In our Country and I think t is so used here they use to make provision for all the year of Venison Pasties at the season that their flesh is best and most savory which is in Iuly and August they bake it in earthen pots or Ryecrust after they have well seasond it with salt and spices and being cold they cover it 6 fingers deep with freshbutter thatthe air may not enter Neverthelesse t is observed after all the diligence that one can make that when the living beasts which are of the same nature and kind are in Rut the flesh which is in the pot smells very rank and very much changed having a stronger tast because of the spirits which come at this season from the living beasts which spirits are attracted naturally by the dead flesh and then one hath much to do to preserve it from being quite spoiled but the said season being passed there is no danger or difficulty to keep it gustfull all the year long The wine Marchants observe in this Country and every where elsewhere there is wine that during the season that the Vines are in flower the wine which is in the Cellar makes a kind of fermentation and pusheth forth a little white lee which I think they call the mother of the wine upon the surface of the wine which continueth in a kind of disorder untill the flowers of the Vines be fallen and then this agitation or fermentation being ceased all the wine returns to the same state it was in before Nor is it now that this observation hath been made but besides divers others who speak hereof St. Ephrem the Syrian in his last Will and Testament some 1300 years ago reports this very same circumstance of wine which sensibly suffers an agitation fermentation within the vessel the same time that the Vines seem to exhaletheir spirits in the Vineyards He makes use of the same example in dry onions which bud in the house when those in the garden begin to come out of the earth and to embalm the air with their spirits shewing thereby by these known examples of nature the communication between living persons and the souls of the dead Now those winy spirits that issue from
the like occasion It was a religious Carmelite that came from the Indies and Persia to Florence he had also been at China who having done many marvailous cures with his Powder after his arrival to Toscany the Duke said he would be very glad to learn it of him It was the father of the Great Duke who governs now The Carmelite answered him That it was a secret which he had learnt in the oriental parts and he thought there was not any who knew it in Europe but himself and that it deserved not to be divulged which could not be done if his Highness would meddle with the practise of it because he was not likely to do it with his own hands but must trust a Surgeon or some other servant so that in a short time divers other would come to know it as well as himself But a few moneths after I had opportunity to do an important courtesie to the said Fryer which induced him to discover unto me his secret and the same year he returned to Persia insomuch that now there is no other knows this secret in Europe but my self The King replied That he needed not apprehend any fear that he would discover for he would not trust any body in the World to make experience of this secret but he would do it with his own hands therefore he would have some of the Powder which I delivered instructing him in all the circumstances Whereupon his Majesty made sundry proofs whence he received singular satisfaction In the interim Doctor Mayerne his first Physitian watched to discover what was done by this secret and at last he came to know that the King made use of Vitriol Afterwards he accosted me saying he durst not demand of me my secret because I made some difficulty to discover it to the King himself But having learnt with what matter it was to be done he hoped that I would communicate unto him all the circumstances how it is to be used I answered him That if he had asked me before I would have frankly told him all for in his hands there was no fear that such a secret should be prostituted and so I told him all A little after the Doctor went to France to see some fair Territories that he had purchased near Geneva which was the Barony of Aubonne In this voyage he went to see the Duke of Mayerne who had been a long time his friend and protector and he taught him this secret whereof the Duke made many experiments which if any other but a Prince had done it may be they had passed for effects of Magick and enchantments After the Dukes death who was killed at the fiege of Montauban his Surgeon who waited upon him in doing cures sold this secret to divers persons of quality who gave him considerable sums for it so that he became very rich thereby The thing being fallen thus into many hands remained not long in terms of a secret but by degrees it came to be so divulged that now there is scarce any Country Barber but knows it Behold now Sirs the genealogie of the Powder of Sympathy in this part of the World with a notable History of a cure performed by it It is time now to come to the discussion which is to know how it is made It must be avowed that it is a marveilous thing that the hurt of a wounded ' person should be cured by the application of a remedy put to a rag of cloth or a weapon at a great distance And it is not to be doubted if after a long and profound speculation of all the oeconomy and concatenation of naturall causes which may be adjudged capable to produce such effects one may fall at last upon the true causes which must have subtill resorts and means to act Hitherto they have been wrapped up in darknesse and adjudged so inaccessible that they who have undertaken to speak or write of them at least those whom I saw have been contented to speak of some ingenious gentilenesse without diving into the bottom endeavouring rather to shew the vivacity of their spirit and the force of their eloquence than to satisfy their Readers and Auditors how the thing is really to be done They would have us take for ready mony some terms which we understand not nor know what they signifie They would pay us with conveniences with resemblances with Sympathies with Magnetical virtues and such terms without explicating what these terms mean They think they have done enough if they feebly perswade any body that the businesse may be performed by a natural way without having any recourse to the intervention of demons and spirits but they pretend not in any sort to have found out the convincing reasons to demonstrate how the thing is done Sirs if I did not hope to gain otherwise upon your spirits I say that if I did not believe that I should be able to perswade you otherwise than by words I would not have undertaken this enterprize I know too well Quid valeant humeri quid ferre recusent such a design requires a great fire vivacity of conceptions volubility of tongue aptnesse of expressions to insinuate as it were by surprisal that which one cannot carry away by a firme foot and by cold reasons though solid A Discourse of this nature ought not to attend a stranger who finds himself obliged to display his sense in a language wherein he can hardly expresse his ordinary conceptions Nevertheless these considerations shall not deterre me from engaging my self in an enterprize which may seem to some much more difficult than that which I am now to performe viz. to make good convincing proofs that this Sympathetical cure may be done naturally and to shew before your eyes and make you touch with your finger how it may be done You know that perswasions are made by ingenious arguments which being expressed with a good grace do rather tickle the imagination than satisfy the understanding But Demonstrations are built upon certain and approved principles and though they be but roughly pronounced yet they convince and draw after them necessary conclusions They proceed as a strong Engin fastned to a gate to batter it down or as a plate of mettal to imprint the mark of the mony at every turn that truth makes she approches but little and as it were insensibly and makes not much noise and there is no such great force required to turn her but her strength though it be slow is invincible that at the end she breaks down the gate and makes a deep impression on the piece of gold or silver whereas the stroke of hammers and bars whereunto witty discourses and the flourished conceptions of subtil spirits require the arme of a Giant makes a great noise and at the end of the account produces little effect To enter then into the matter I will according to the method of Geometrical Demonstrations lay six or seven Principles as foundation-stones whereon I will erect
my structure But I will lay them so well and so firmly that there will be no great difficulty to grant them These Principles shall be like the wheels of Archimedes by the advantage whereof a child might be capable to hale a shore the bigest Carack of King Hieron which a hundred pair of Oxen with all the Ropes and Cables of his Arsenal were not able to stir so by the strength of these Principles I hope to waft my conclusions to a safe Port. The first Principle shall be That the whole Orb or Sphere of the Air is filled with light If it were needful to prove in this point that the Light is a material and corporal substance and not an imaginary and incomprehensible quality as many Schoolmen averre I could do it evidently enough but I have done this in another Treatife which hath been published not long since And it is no new opinion for many of the most esteemed Philosophers among the Ancients have advanced it yea the Great St. Augustin in his Third Epistle to Volusion doth alledge that it is his sentiment But touching our present businesse whether the light be the one or the other it matters not t is enough to explicate her course and the journies she makes whereunto our senses bear witnesse T is clâ—ar that issuing continually out of her source which is the Sun and lancing her self by a marvailous celerity on all fides by streight lines there where she rancounters any obstacles in her way by the opposition of some hard or opaque body she reflects and leaping thence to equal angles she takes again her course by a streight line untill she bandies some other side upon another solid body and so she continueth to make new boundings here and there until at the end being chased on all sides by the bodies which oppose her in her passage she is tyred and so extinguisheth In the like manner we see a Ball in Tenis Court being struck by a strong arm against the walls leaps to the opposite side that sometimes she makes the circuit of the whole Court and finisheth her motion near the place where she was first struck Our very eyes are witnesses of this progresse of the light when by way of reflexion she illuminates some obscure place whither she cannot directly arrive Or when issuing immediatly from the Sun and beating upon the Moon or some other of the Planets the rayes which cannot find entrance there bound upon our earth otherwise we should not see them and there she is reflected broken and bruised by so many bodies as she meets in her diversity of reflexions The second Principle shall be that the light glancing so upon some body the rayes which enter no further and which rebound upon the superficies of the body loosen themselves and carry with them some small particles or atomes just as the ball whereof we have spoken would carry with it some of the moisture of the wall against which she is banded if the plaister thereof were also moyst and as in effect she carryed away some tincture of the black wherewith the walls are coloured The reason whereof is that the light that subtill and rarified fire coming with such an imperceptible hast for her darts are within our eyes as soon as her head is above our Horison making so many million of miles in an inimaginable space of time I say the light beating upon the body which opposeth her she cannot chuse but make there some small incisions proportionable to her rarity and subtility And these small Atomes being cut and loosened from their trunk being composed of the four Elements as all bodies are the heat of the light doth stick and incorporate it self with the most humid viscuous and gluing parts of the said Atoms and brings them along with her Experience shews us this as well as Reason for when one puts some humid cloth to dry before the fire the fiery rayes beating thereon those which find no entrance but reflect thence carry away with them some small moist bodies which make a kind of mist betwixt the cloth and the fire In like manner the Sun at his risig enlightning the earth which is humified either by rain or the dew of the night his beams raise a mist which by little and little ascends to the tops of the hills and this mist doth arifie according as the Sun hath more force to draw it upwards until at last we lose the sight thereof and that it becomes part of the air which in regard of its tenuity is invisible unto us These Atoms then are like Cavaliers mounted on winged coursers who go very far untill that the Sun setting takes from them their Pegasus and leaves them unmounted and then they precipitate themselves in crowds to the earth whence they sprung the greatest part of them and the most heavy fall upon the first retreating of the Sun and that we call the Serain which though it be so thin that we cannot see it yet we feel it as so many small hammers which strike upon our heads and bodies principally the elder sort of them for the younger sort in regard of the boyling of their bloud and the heat of their complexion thrust out of them abundance of spirits which being stronger than those that fell from the Serain they repulse them and hinder them to operate upon the bodies whence these spirits came forth as they do upon those that being grown cold by age are not warranted by so strong an emanation of the spirits which come out of them The wind which blows and is tossed to and fro is no other than a great River of the like Atomes drawn out of some solid bodies which are upon the earth and so are banded here and there according as they find cause for that effect I remember to have once sensibly seen how the wind is ingendred I passed over Mount Cenis to go for Italy towards the beginning of Summer and I was advanced to half the hill as the Sun did rise cleer and luminous but before I could see his body because the Mountains interposed I observed his rayes which did guild the top of the Mountain Viso which is the Pyramid of a Rock a good deal higher than Mount Cenis and all the neighbouring Mountains Many are of opinion that it is the highest Mountain in the World after the Pic of Tenariff in the gran Canarie and this Mount Viso is alwayes covered with snow I observed then that about that place which was illuminated by the Solar rayes there was a fog which at first was of no greater extent then an ordinary boule but by degrees it grew greater that at last not onely the top of that Mountain but all the neighbouring hills were canopied all over with a cloud I was now come to the top of Mount Cenis and finding my self in the streight line which passeth from the Sun to Mount Viso I stayed awhile to behold it while my people were
coming up the hill behind for having more men to carry my chair than they had I was there sooner It was not long that I might perceive the said fog descend gently to the place where I was and I began to feel a freshnesse that came over my face when I turned it that way When all my Troup was come about me we went descending the other side of Mount Cenis towards Suze and the lower we went we sensibly found it that the wind began to blow hard behind our backs for our way obliged us to go towards the side where the Sun was We met with Passâ—ngers that were going up and we down they told us that the wind was very impetuous below and did much incommodate them by blowing in their faces and eyes but the higher they came it was lesser and lesser and touching our selves when we had come to the place where they said the wind blew so hard we found a kind of storm and it encreased still the lower we went untill the Sun being well advanced drew no more by that line but caused a wind in some other place The people of that Country assured me that it was there alwayes so if some extraordinary and violent accident did not intervene and divert his ordinary course which is that upon a certain hour of the day the wind doth raise it self to such a rumb or point when the Sun is come to auother point another wind riseth and so from hand to hand it changes the point till the Sun set which alwayes brings with it a calm if the weather be fair and that alwayes comes from the Mount Viso opposite to the Sun They told us also that the daily wind is commonly stronger towards the bottom of the Mountain than towards the top whereof the reason is evident for the natural movement of every body natural doth encrease always in swiftnesse according as it moves forward to its center and that in an unequal number as Galileo hath ingeniously demonstrated I did it also in another Treatise that is to say that if at the first moment it advanceth an ell in the second it advanceth three in the third five in the fourth seven and so it continueth to augment in the same manner which proceeds from the density and figure of the descending body acting upon the cellibility of the medium And these smal bodies which cause a wind from Mount Viso are thick and terrestrial for the snow being composed of aquatical parts and of earthly united by the cold when the heat of the Solar beams doth disunite and separate them the viscous parts flie with them while the terrestrial being too heavy to fly upward fall presently downward This makes me remember a very remarkable thing which befel me when I was with my Fleet in the Port of Scanderon or Alexandrette towards the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea there they use to disimbark when they go to Aleppo or Babylon I had done already what I had intended to do in those seas and happily compassed my design so it imported me much to return to England as soon as possibly I could and the rather because my Ships were battered by a great fight which I had had a little before against a formidable power which although I had obtained the better yet in so furious a dispute my Fleet was in some disorder and my Ships full of wounded men To advise therefore of the most expedient road to come to some harbour where I might repair my Ships and be in surety I assembled all my Captains Pilots and Mariners the most experienced of my Fleet and having propounded unto them my design they were all of an unaminous opinion that the surest course was towards the South and to coast upon Syria Iudea Egypt and Africa and render our selves at the streight of Gibraltar and sailing so near the body of the earth we should have every night some small briezes of wind whereby we should in a short time make our voyage And besides we should not be in any great danger to meet either with Spanish or French Fleets for England was at that time in open war with both those Kings and we had advise that they had great Fleets abroad to vindicate some things we had done in prejudice of them both those sixteen moneths that we remained Master of those seas therefore it concerned us to make towards some safe Port where we might both refresh our men and repair our battered Vessels My opinion was clean contrary to theirs for I believed our best course were to steer our course Westward and to saile along the coasts of Cilicia Pamphylia Lydia Natolia or Asia the Lesse and to traverse the mouth of the Archipelago leave the Adriatick on the right hand and passe by Sicily Italy Sardinia Corsica the Golps of Lion and so coast all Spain telling them that it would be a great dishonour unto us to forsake our best road for fear of the enemy for our chief businesse thither was to find them out and the protection which it pleased God to afford us all along in so many combats in going was cause to make us hope that the same providence would vouchsafe to guide us as we should be returning That there was no doubt but the road which I proposed unto them considered simply in it self was not without comparison the better and the more expedit to saile out of the Mediterranean sea and gain the Ocean because said I that although we have the briezes from off the earth as long as we were upon the coasts of Syria and Egypt we shall not have them at all while we saile upon the coasts of Lybia where there are those fearfull sands which they call the Syrtes which are of a great extent the said coast having no humidity for there is neither tree nor herb grows there for there is nought else but moving sands which covered and enterred heretofore at one glut the puissant Army of King Cambyses Now where there is no humidity the Sun cannot attract to make a wind so that we shall never find there specially in Sommer time any other wind but that Regular wind which blows from East to West according to the course of the Sun who is the father of winds unlesse some extraordinary happen either from the coast of Italy which lies Northward or from the bottom of Ethiopia where the Mountains of the Moon are and the source of the Cataracts of Nile therefore if we were neer the Syrtes the winds of Italy would be most dangerous unto us and expose us to shipwrack I reasond so according to natural causes while they of my Councel of war kept themselves firm to their experience which was the cause that I would do nothing against the unanimous sense of all for although the disposing and resolution of all things depended absolutely upon my self yet I thought I might be justly accused of rashnesse or willfulnesse if I should prefer my own advise
mediation of the Sun beams and of the light use to issue forth out of all bodies that are composed of Elements who throng the air and are carried a marvailous distance from the place and bodies where they have their origen and source the proof and explication of which things hath been the aime of my discourse hitherunto Now my Lords I must if you please make you see how these small bodies that so fill and compose the air are oftentimes drawn to a road altogether differing from that which their universal causes should make them hold and it shall be our fifth principle One may remark within the course and aeconomy of nature sundry sorts of attractions as that of succion or sucching whereby I have seen a ball of lead at the bottom of a long steel exactly wrought follow the air which one sucked out of the mouth of a Canon with that impetuosity and strength that it broke his teeth The attraction of water or wine that is done by the instrument Scyphon is like to this for by means of that one liquor is made to passe from one vessel into another without changing any way the colour or rising of the lees There is another sort of attraction which is called magnetical whereby the loadstone draws the iron Another electrick when the Iett-stone draws unto it straws There is another of the Flame when the smoke of a candle put out draws the flame of that which burns hard by and makes it descend to light that which is out There is another of Filtration when one humid body mounts upon a dry body or when the contrary is done Lastly when the fire or some hot body draws the air and that which is mixed therewith We will treat here of the two first species of attraction I have sufficiently spoken of the rest in another place Filtration may seem to him who hath not attentively considered it nor examined by what circumstances so hidden a secret of nature comes to passe and to a person of a mean and limited understanding to be done by some occult virtue or property and will perswade himself that within the Filtre or strayning instrument there is some secret Sympathy which makes water to mount up contrary to its natural motion But he who will examine the business as it ought to be observing all that is done without omitting any circumstance he will find there is nothing more natural and that it is impossible it should be otherwise And we must make the same judgement of all the profound mysteries and hidden'st mysteries of nature if one would take the pains to discover them and search into them with judgement Behold then how Filtration is made they use to put a long toung of cloth or cotten or spongy matter within an earthen pot of water or other liquor and let hanging upon the brim of the pot a good part of the cloth and one shall see the water presently mount up and passe above the brink of the vessel and drop at the lower end of the piece of cloth upon the ground or within some vessel and the Gardners make use of this method to water their plants and flowers in Summer by soft degrees As also the Apothecaries and Chymists to separate their liquors from their dregs and residences To comprehend the reason why the water ascends in that manner let us neerly observe all that is done That part of the cloth which is within the water becomes wetted to wit it receives and imbibes the water through its spongy and dry parts at first This cloth swells in receiving the water so two bodies joyned together require more room than one of them would by it self Let us consider this swelling and augmented extension in the last thread of them which touch the water viz. that on the superficies which to be distinguished from the rest let it be marked at the two ends as by a line as with A. B. and the thread which immediately follows and is above it let it be C. D. and the following E. F. then with G. H. and so to the end of the toung I say then that the thread A. B. dilating it self and swelling by means of the water which enters twixt it fibres or strings approacheth by little and little to C. D. which is yet dry because it toucheth not the water but when A. B. is grown so grosse and swelling by reason of the water which enters that it fills all the vacuity and all the distance which lies twixt it and C. D. as also that it presseth against C. D. by reason of its extension which is greater than the space was betwixt them both then it wets C. D. because the thread A. B. being compressed the exterior part of the water which was in it coming to be pushed on upon C. D. seeks there a place and entreth within the threeds and wets them in the same manner as at first the exterior and highest part became wet C. D. being so wetted it shall dilate it self as A. B. did and consequently pressing against E. F. it cannot chuse but work the same effect in it which before it had received by the swelling and dilatation of A. B. and so by gentle degrees every thread wets its neighbour untill the very last thread of cloth toung And it is not to be feared that the continuity of the water will break ascending this scale of chords or that it will recoyl backwards for those little ladders so easy to be mounted render the ascent the more easie and the woolly fibres of every thread seem to reach their hands to help them up at every pace and so the facility of getting up contremont joyned with the fluidness of the water and the nature of quantity which tends alwayes to the uniting of substances and of bodies which it clothes when there occures no other predominant cause to break and divide it causeth that the water keeps it self in one piece and passeth above the brink of the pot After that its voyage is made more easie for it goes after its natural panching alwayes downwards And if the end of the cloth hangs lower without the pot then the surface of the water within the pot the water spills on the earth or some vessel placed beneath as we see that a heavier chord being hung upon a pully the longest and heaviest falls upon the ground and carrieth away the shortest and lightest making it passe above the pully But if the outward end of the cloth which is without the pot were horizontal with the surface of the water and did hang no lower then it the water would be immoveable as the two sides of a balance when there 's equal weight in both the scales And if one would powre out the water that is in the pot in such sort that the superficies did grow lower than the end of the cloth In that case the ascending water becoming more heavy than the descendant on the other side without the pot
it would call back that which was gone out before and was ready to fall and would make it thrust on and return to its former pace and enter again into the pot to mingle again with the water which lyes therein You see then this mystery which at first was surprizing displayed and made as familiar and natural as to see a stone fall down from the air T is true that to make a demonstration thereof by an exact and compleat rigor we must adde other circumstances which we have done in another Discourse wherein I expressely treated of this subject But that which I now say is sufficient to give a tincture how this so notable an attraction is made The other attraction which comes by fire which draws unto it the ambient air with the smal bodies therein is made thus The Fire acting according to its own nature which to push on a continual river or exhalation of its parts from the center to the circumference and out of its source carrieth away with it the air which adjoyned and sticking to it on all sides as the water of a river trains along with it the earth of thae channel or bed through which it glides For the air being humid and the fire drye they cannot do lesse than embrace and hug one another But there must a new air come from the places circumjacent to fill the room of that which is carried away by the fire otherwise there would a vacuity happen which nature abhors This new air remains not long in the place which it comes to fill but the fire who is in a continual carreer and emanation of his parts carries it presently with him and draws the new air and so there is a perpetual and constant current of the air as long as the action of fire continues We dayly see the experience hereof for if one makes a good fire in ones Chamber it draws the air from the door and windows which chough one would shut yet there be crevices and holes for the air to enter and coming near them one shall hear a kind of whisling noise which the air makes in pressing to enter and t is the same cause that produceth the sound of the Organ and flute and he who would stand between the crevices and the fire he should find such an impetuosity of that artificial wind that he would be ready to freeze while he is ready to burn the tother side next the fire And a candle of wax being held in this current of the wind would melt by her flame blown against the wax and waste away in a very short time whereas if that candle stood in a calm place that her flame might burn upward it would last much longer But if there be no passage whereby the air may enter into the Chamber the one part then of the vapor of the wood which should have converted to flame and so mounted up the funnel of the chimney descends downward against its nature for to supply the defect of air within the said Chamber and fills it with smoak but at last the fire choaks and extinguisheth for want of air Whence it come to passe that the Chymists have reason to say that the air is the life of the fire as well as other animals But if one puts a bason or vessel of water before the fire upon the hearth there will be no smoke in the Chamber although it be so close shut that the air cannot enter for the fire attracts parts of the water which is a liquid substance and easie to move out of its place which aquatic parts rarifie themselves into air and thereby perform the functions of the air This is more evidently seen if the Chamber be little for then the air which is there penned in is sooner raised up and carried away And by reason of this attraction they use to make great fires where there are hushould-stuff of men that died of the Pestilence to disinfect them For by this inondation of air which is drawn the fire doth as it were sweep the walls the planks with other places of the Chamber and takes away those little putrified sharp corrosive and venemous bodies which were the infections that adhered unto it drawing them into the fire where they are partly burnt and partly sent up into the chimney accompanied with the atoms of the fire and the smoke It is for this reason that the great Hippocrates which groped so far into the secrets of Nature disinfected and freed from the plague a whole Province or entire Region by causing them to make great fires every where Now this manner of attraction is made not onely by a simple fire but by that which partakes of it viz. by the heated substances and that which is the reason and cause of the one is also the cause of the other For the spirits or ignited parts evaporating from such a substance or hot body carry away with them the adjacent air which ought necessarily to be nourished by some other air or by some matter which keeps the place of the air as we have spoken of the bason and tub of water put before the fire to hinder smoke It is upon this foundation that Physitians do ordain the hot application of Pigeons or young dogs or some other hot animals to the soles of the feet or the handwrists or the stomacks or navills of their patients to extract out of their bodies the wind or ill vapors which infect them and in time of contagion or universal infection of the air pigeons cats dogs with other hot animals use to be killed which make continually a great transpiration of evaporation of spirits because the air by those attractions it makes taking the room of the spirits which issue forth of evaporation the pestiferous atoms which are scattered in the air and accompany it use to stick to their feathers skins or furres And for the same reason we see that bread coming hot from the Oven draws unto it the must of the cask which spoiles the wine if they put it hot upon the bung And that onions such hot bodies which perpetually exhale unto them the fiery parts which appears by the strength of their smell are quickly taken with infectious airs if they be exposed unto them which is one of the signes to know whether the whole masse of the air be universally infected And one might reduce to this head the great attraction of air which is made by calcind bodies and particularly by tartar all ignited by the violent action of the fire upon it which is heaped together and bodified among his salt for I have observed that it attracts unto it nine times more air than it weighs it self For if one should expose to the air a pound of salt of tartar well calcind and burnt it will afford you ten pound of good oyl of tartar drawing unto it and so bodifying the circumjacent air and that wherewith t is mingled as it befell that oyl of
by the tast by the smell by the colour and consistence thereof And sometimes they cause it to be boyled untill it come to an evaporation and see its residence with other accidents and circumstances which may be learnt and discerned by these meanes But those of whose milk this last experiment hath been made felt themselves tormented in their papps and duggs while their milk was a boyling therefore having once endured this pain they would never consent that their milk should be carried away out of their sight and presence although they willingly submitted to any other proof than that by fire Now to confirm this experiment of the attraction which the cowes udder makes of the fire and vapour of the burned milk I am going to racount unto you another of the same nature whereof I my self have seen the truth more than once and whereof any one may easily make try all Take the excrements of a dog and hurle it into the fire more than once at the beginning you shall find him heated and moved but in a short time you shall see him as if he were burned all over panting and stretching out his tongue as if he had run a long course Now this alteration befalls him because his entrailes drawing unto them the vapour of the burn'd excrement and with that vapour the atomes of fire which did accompany it they are so changed and inflam'd that the dog having alwaies a fever upon him and not being able to take any nourishment his flancks do lock up which causeth his death at last It were not proper to divulge this experience among such persons as are subject to make use of any thing for doing of mischief for the same effects which happen to beasts would fall upon mens bodies if one should try such a conclusion upon their excrements There happened a remarkable thing to this purpose to a neighbour of mine in England the last time I sojournied there He had a very pretty and delicate child and because he would have his eies alwaies upon him he entertained the nurse at his house I saw him often for he was a pragmaticall man and of good addresses and I had occasion to use such a man One day I found him very sad and his wife a weeping whereof demanding the reason they told me that their little child was very ill and that he had a burning feaver which inflamed all his body over which appeared by the rednesse of his face that he forced himself to go to stool but he could do little and that little which he did was covered with bloud and that he refused also to suck And that which troubled them most was that they could not conjecture any cause how this indisposition should befall him for his nurse was very well her milk was as good as could be wished and in all other things there was as much care had of him as could be I told them that the last time I was with them I observed one particularity whereof I thought fit to give them notice but something or other still diverted me It was that their child making a signe that he was desirous to be set on his feet he let fall his excrements on the ground and his nurse presently took the fire-shovell and covered it with embers and then threw all into the fire the mother began to make her excuses that they were not so carefull to correct this ill habit of the child saying that as he advanced in yeares he should be corrected for it I replied that t was not for this consideration that I held this discourse with her but I was curious to know the reason of her childs distemper and consequently to find some remedy And thereupon I related unto them the like accident which had happened two or three yeares before to a child of one of the most illustrious Magistrates of the Parliament of Paris who was bred up in the house of a Doctor of Physick of great reputation in the same town I told them also what I have now related unto you touching the excrements of dogs and I made reflections unto them upon that which they had often heard and what is often practised in our Countrey which is that within the villages which are alwaies dirty in the winter if it happens that there be a Farmer which is more proper than others and who keeps more neatly the approaches to his house than his neighbours do the boyes use to come thither in the night time or when it begins to be dark to discharge their bellies there because that in such villages there is not much commodity of easements besides that in such places so fitly accommodated these gallants the boyes are out of danger to sink into the dirt which otherwise might rise up higher than their shooes but the good houswifes in the morning when they open their doores use to find such an ill favoured smell that transports them with choller But they who are acquainted with this trick go presently and fire red hot a broach or fire-shovel and then they thrust it into the excrements all hot and when the fire lessens they heat it again oftentimes to the same purpose In the mean time the boy which made the ordure feels a kind of pain and collick in his bowells with an inflammation in his fundament and a continuall desire to go to stool and he is hardly quit of it till he suffer a kind of fever all that day which is the cause that he returnes thither no more And these women to be freed from such affronts do passe among the Ignorant for sorceresses and to have made a compact with the divell since they torment people in that fashion without seeing or touching them This Gentleman did not disallow those things which I have already told you but was confirmed farther when I told him that he should look farther into the fundament of his child for without doubt he should find it red and inflamed and that visiting him he should find that it was full of pimples and excoriated It was not long after that this poor child fell into a languishment and with much pain and pittifull cries he voyded some small matter which in lieu of casting it into the fire or to be covered with embers I caused to be put into a bason of cold water which was put in a fresh place which was continued to be done every time that the child gave occasion and he began to amend the very same hour and within four or five daies he became perfectly well recovered But fearing to trespasse too much upon your patience I will hold you no longer but with one experiment onely very familiar in our Countrey and afterwards I will make a summary of all that hath been said to make you see the force and value of this whole Discourse We have in England as I touched before excellent pasturage for the nourishment and fatting of cattle so abundantly that it falls out often
seems there can be no default stop or interruption in their proceedings But we shall be the better fortified in the belief of their vertue and esticacy and how they come to produce the effects of so many fair cures if we consider that then when some is practised in one of these causes or in all of them together we see and perceive immediately an effect altogether differing from the former If I had not formerly seen a watch or clock I should be justly surprized and should remain astonished to see a hand or a needle so regularly mark the journal hours and motion of the Sun upon the flat of a quadrant and that it should turn and make its round every four and twenty howers there being nothing seen that should push on the said needle But if I look on the other side I see wheels ressorts and counterpoises which are in perpetual movement which having well and soberly considered I presently suspect that those wheels are the cause of the movement and turnings of the said needle although I cannot presently discern or know how those moving wheels do cause a motion in the needle of the quadrant because of the plate that lieth interposed betwixt them Therefore I reason thus within my self That every effect whatsoever must have of pure necessity some cause and therefore that the body moved there ought necessarily to receive its movement from some other body which is contiguous to it Now I see no other body which makes the needle of the quadrant to move and turn then the said wheels therefore I must of force be perswaded to attribute the movement unto them But afterwards when I shall have stoped the motion of those wheeles and taken away the counterpoise and observed that suddenly the needle ceased to move and that applying again the counterpoise and giving liberty for the wheel to turn the needle returns to her ordinary train or by making one wheel to go faster by putting my finger unto it or by adding more weight to the counterpoise the needle doth hasten and advance its motions proportionably Then I grow to be convinced and entirely satisfied and so I absolutely conclude that these wheels and counterpoises are the true cause of the motion of the needle In the same manner if interrupting the action of any of those causes which I have established for the true foundation of the Sympathetical Powder I alter retard or hinder the cure of the wound I may boldly conclude that the foresaid causes are the legitimate and genuine true causes of the cure and that we need not amuse our selves to make indagations for any other Let us then examine our businesse by that bias I have affirmed that the Light transporting the atoms of the Vitriol and of the bloud and dilating them to a great extent in the air the wound or place hurt doth attract them and thereby is immediately solac'd and eased and consequently comes to be healed by the spirits of the Vitriol which is of a balsamical virtue But if you put the bason or Powder with the cloth embrued with bloud within an Armory or into a corner of some cold rooms or into a cave where the light never comes nor fresh air which makes the place corrupted and to have ill smells in that case the wound can receive no amendment nor any good effect from the said Powder And it will fall out in the same manner if having put the bason or Powder in some By-corner and that you cover them with some thick cloth stuffing and spongie which might imbibe the atomes that use to come forth and which retain the the light and rayes which enter there where they are thereby stopped and quite lost Moreover if you suffer the water of Vitriol to congeale into ice or the cloth wherein t is dipped the party hurt shall be sensible at the beginning of a very great cold in his wound but when it is iced all over he shall feel neither heat nor cold in regard that congealed cold doth constipate the pores of the water which neverthelesse doth not cease to transpire and send forth spirits If one should wash the cloth spotted with bloud in vinegar or lye which by their penetrating acrimony transports all the spirits of the bloud before the Vitriol be applied it will produce no effect yet if it be washed but with pure simple water it may neverthelesse do something for that water carries not away so much but the effect will not be so great as if the bloudspotted piece had not been washed at all for then it is full of the spirits of the bloud The same cure is performed by applying the remedy to the blade of a sword which wounds a body if it come not to passe that the sword be too much heated by the fire for then it would make all the spirits of the bloud to evaporate and in that case the sword would serve but little to perform the cure Now the reason why the sword may be dressed in order to the cure is because the subtill spirits of bloud do penetrate the substance of the blade as far as the extent which the sword made within the body of the the wounded party where they use to make their residence there being nothing to chace them away unlesse it be the fire as I said before For experiment whereof hold it over a chafing-dish of moderate fire and you shall discern on the side opposite to the fire a little humidity which resembleth the spots that ones breath makes upon looking-glasses or upon the burnished blade of a sword If you look upon it athwart some glasse which makes the object seem bigger you shall find that this soft dew of the spirits consists in little bubbles or blown bladders and when once they are entirely evaporated you shall discern no more upon the weapen unlesse it were thrust a new into the body of a living person Nor from the beginning shall you discover any such thing but precisely upon the part of the blade which had entred the wound This subtil penetration of the spirits into the hard steel may confirm the belief of the entrance of such spirits into the skin of a woman big with child as I remind to have proposed unto you in my sixth Principle remarkable in its own place Now then while the spirits lodge in the sword they may serve as great helps for the cure of the Patient but when the fire hath driven them all away the remedy applied to the sword will not availe any thing at all Furthermone if any violent heat accompanies these atomes it inflames the wound but common salt may remedy that the humidity of water humectates the hurt and the cold causeth a chilnesse in the party wounded To confirm all these particulars I could adde to those I have already raccounted many notable examples more but I fear me I have already too much exercised your patience therefore I will industriously pretermit the mentioning of them at this time but I offer to entertain any of this Honourable Assembly therewith if they have the curiosity to be informed of them accordingly I conclude then Messieurs by representing unto you that all this my stery is guided and governed all along by true natural wayes and circumstances although by the agency and resorts of very subtil spirits I am perswaded my Discourse hath convincingly shewed you that in this Sympathetical cure there is no need to admit of an action distant from the Patient I have traced unto you a real Communication twixt the one and the other viz. of a Balsamical substance which corporally mingleth with the wound Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and faintnesse of heart or rather a grosse ignorance of the Understanding to pretend any effects of charm or magick herein or to confine all the actions of Natre to the grossenesse of our senses when we have not sufficiently considered nor examined the true causes and principles whereon t is fitting we should ground our judgement we need not have recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties Mec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Insiderit ΤΕΛΟΣ Books printed for and to be sold by Thomas Davis MAster Paul Bains his Practical Commentary on the Ephesians lately reprinted with Additions Fol. Speedells Geometrical Extractions newly reprinted with Additions Quarto Oughtredi Trigonometria the figure