in a kinde of Learning to unlearn all as it were and begin again for their own Credit and Virtue yea and Profits sake also if they esteem the best to leave those gilded Pills and sugred Baits and all other crafty Snares wherewith the World hath been so long caught and tormented and to seek this one heavenly plain and to you that be Learned easie ready true and certain way of healing Diseases I think before-times they were not greatly to be blamed and accused but of dulness and weakness in Understanding in not espying and seeing this Perfection and supplying of all their Wants But now since of late they have been so often warned not with Words onely but with Examples of Learned Men Matheolus Gorraeus Fernelius Severinus Danus and other such like which have and do revolt and fly away from them daily yea and by the certain and sufficient both written and living Witness of the Deeds of Paracelsus it were Impiety to stand still Well few words will serve to Wise and Virtuous Physicians such as are of themselves forward But there is another and I am afraid the greater sort less honest more idle and covetous full of windy Pride and Words but empty of all good Learning with whom gentle warning no though the Truth her self should come in person would prevail nothing who care not it seems to behold half Mankinde to perish for want of help and succour rather than they would either blot their Credit increase their Pains or lose their Gains and which not onely speak foully and write foolishly against this over-flourishing Virtue but also like the giddy People where they catch the State banish the Men that hold and possess it Whereas if it were a good Common-wealth saith Aristotle the matter would be so far from Banishment as they would deem such a Man as well as the Laws for he is himself a Law exempt from all Obedience and judge him worthy to be followed and obeyed as a perpetual King This untowardness and crookedness in Men caused all our All-healing Ancestors from time to time never to abide their Sentence but to the great hurt and loss of Mankinde to go into willing Banishment You have established a kinde of Government among you to pursue the same Like a little wherein you rule alone over the weak and sorry Subjects of Mens Bodies Then their Health and Safety you ought to seek onely besides enough to maintain contented estate which Plato allows his Governours and not profit onely that were Tyranny both for Humanity and Religion sake for to omit Religion which they do lightly omit if a Leach begin once to make a prey of Men he is not onely no Man but a most fierce and cruel Beast not so fit to be compared and matched any where if you seek all over as with that mis-shapen Monster of India which Aristotle describes and calls Mantichora which being by Kinde or Custom I know not whether very greedy upon Mans flesh is with manifold and wonderful helps furnished and armed unto it first with a Face like a Man and Voice like a Trumpet two fit things to allure and toll him in and then if he fly with the swiftness of a Hart to overtake him and darts like a Porcupine to wound him afar off and with the Tail of a Scorpion as it were a poisoned shaft near hand to sting him furthermore lest all this might not serve by reason of Armours he hath Feet like a Lion fiercely and stoutly to tear him and three rows of Teeth on each Chap for speed in devouring Apply You and your Apothecaries the rest of your selves in secret for my part as I am sorry to see evil done so am I as loth to speak evil of it and sure were not the great grief and Envy I do bear and always did to see desert trodden down by such unworthiness and some little hope besides to hear of your amendment and so of the return of the Truth and her honours out of banishment you should have found me as I have been long and mean to be longer quite dumb and Tongueless both in this and all other Matters Do not think I speak of Spight or for hope of gain or for any such matter There is no cause God knows I am no Physician never was nor ever mean to be what I am it makes no matter Let us go forward CHAP. III. Of YOUTH ALbeit we live Long and in Health yet if our Bodies be weak and unwieldy as it is in Age it must needs lett and clog us much in this happy Race Wherefore the third help and step to BLISSE that is Youth was not idle nor out of Order Then what is Youth They know best that have lost it It is the most active fruitful and beautiful state of the Body These be the Marks and Differences whereby we may know it from all things else I mean Activity not in deeds of Moving onely but of Life and Sense also This is it which makes up the Nature of Youth The other two Marks are taken in not as needful helps either to Youth or BLISSE and such as may not be spared especially Beauty but because they be very notable Marks as I said to know Youth by and that as we heard of true Honour and Pleasure above so these will also perforce hang on and follow though they be unlooked for and unregarded Then this is the matter under-hand in this place This we must prove possibly to be kept and preserved unto our lives end yea and although it were lost before that it may be gotten again and restored And yet first as our Natural Heat is the cause of our Being so the cause of our best Estate and Youth is the flower and best estate of it that is his chief strength and quickness Then keep or recover this and all is done But we had need be sure of this that the flower of Heat makes us Young and flourishing and sure by proof and experience the best assurance in the World Let us look all over and we shall finde it so To begin with Plants although their life is dark and they be but lame and unperfect Wights for Plato gives them sense yet their flourishing and decay their Youth and Age as I may term them do clearly follow the quickness or dulness of their in bred heat caused by the two Seasons of Summer and Winter as appears in India where for the continual heat and moisture and Summer of the Country no Plant feels Age or fall of the Leaf that word is idle in those parts save Fen-greek because by a strange property besides the rest it hath strange cooling above the rest standing in Water first and then somewhat deeply from the Sun Nay amongst us we see those Plants which are Hot and Dry sound and hardy able to withstand the force of Cold to keep their leaves in Winter Moreover keep off that starving Cold
among them If any one chance to fly away from you to those heavenly Places and after like experience to return and make the like Reports you give him like Rewards Compare the rest I say no more But if GOD would give you leave and power to ascend unto those high places I mean to those heavenly Thoughts and Studies you might quickly by view of deep Causes and Divine Secrets and comparison of one to another not onely believe the blessed-Art but also learn and perform the same But they will not be rid so and follow as fast again another way That whereas so many have been and are daily seen to wear their lives in Alchimy and to finde nothing that good is but contrary for the most part to wit untimely and unordinary Death Sickness and Age for Long-life Health and Youth and alwayes Smoke for Gold and Folly for Wisdome and very near as often bad and lewd Conditions for good and honest Natures for by boiling themselves long in such deceitful stuff as though they were burnt in the Pots bottome they carry most commonly for ever after an unsavoury smack thereof It is a plain sign the Trade is vain false and deceitfull This is the third Charge they give unto us let us see how to bear and withstand it The most wise and great Philosophers albeit they knew GOD had made all Mankinde for that happy Life abovesaid and that it was at first enjoyed or else it had been made in vain and that by corruption of ill Custom by his secret appointment our kinde is grown out of kinde and therefore may be restored because it is a mis-leading and no intent of Nature which fore-castings gave them occasion to seek the remedy Yet they thought it unlawful and set straight against the Will of GOD that all should be restored for that he seemed of purpose to have sown Good and Bad and great store of both together in such sort as we see them lest if all were alike and in one state of Happiness the great variety of business and stirring and so the society and Common-wealth among Men should be clean taken away Like as if the four first striving Seeds whereof all things are made and spring were all alike and one friend to another all should be still and quiet without Succession Change and Variety in the World and so there should be no World For GOD when he cast his Minde upon the building of the World he meant to make a goodly and beautiful Work meet for the Power Wisdome and Pleasure of such a Builder and therefore a stirring and changeable Work because there is no might nor cunning shewn no delight taken in one ever-like or still thing But light footing for speed is ever best in such a ground Let us away Wherefore by the example and as it were by the secret blast and motion of GOD after our Men had found this Restorative and used it for the time and meant to leave it as becometh good Men to Posterity they took this way of Counsel to lay it up safe in a strong Castle as it were in the which all the broad Gates and common easie Entries should be fast shut up and barred leaving onely one little and secret back-door open fore-fenced with a winding Maze that the best sort by Wit Pains and Providence might come into the appointed BLISSE the rest stand back forsaken Their Maze and Plot is this first they hide themselves in low and untrodden Places to the end they might be free from the power of Princes and the Eyes of the wicked World And then they wrote their Books with such a wary and well-fenced Style I mean so over-cast with dark and sullen shadows and sly pretence of Likes and Riddles drawn out of the midst of deep knowledge and secret Learning that it is impossible for any but the wise and well-given to approch or come near the Matter And therefore it is when godless and unlearned Men hovering over Gain and Honour presume against Minerva's will to handle their Words when the Things should rather be handled they wrest and wring them a hundred wayes for nothing is so soft and gentle as Speech especially so throughly temper'd and yet all besides the secret meaning thrust up in deep Knowledge Then if these Wayes and Fantasies they practice and set on work as fast as their Fingers itch and miss as fast as they must needs do shall they say they followed our Rules and Precepts and put our Work in practise and found them false That were like as if a cunning Archer and Huntsman had delivered dark Rules of Shooting and Hunting unto his Countrymen and these by chance had fallen into the hands of another wilde and untaught Nation which simply mis-led by mis-taking his Drift and Meaning had made them Ploughs to shoot in and goared their Oxen to the game and then missing of their purpose cried out and blamed the Arts of Shooting and Hunting and sought to blow Envy upon the Man that taught them would not a Wise man judge hold and deem both these and them and all other busie-bodies that so use to myne dig in other Mens dealings to be sent unto their own Trade and Business wherefore they were made and fashioned and to let the rest alone for the right owners And for these of HERMES house do not think they make claim sue and recover their own in open Court as others use that were a way in such a wicked World to lose Land Life and all together quickly but in that secret sort which falleth not within the compass of your Reproof Neither would I have you follow so hard and be so earnest upon the next Reason That albeit our Men had cause to hide their Works and Practise yet they would have shewed the fruit and effect thereof advancing themselves as others do to Honour and Pleasure and not have lived like the refuse of the World in such mean plight and wretchedness for that is the lightest of all other though it seem the greatest If I list to rifle in the Rolls of ancient Records I could easily finde and shew you that although the most part of purpose lived in this harmless and safe Estate which I told you yet some again were Kings and Men of great Place and Dignity and yet I think by Remainder and not by Purchase so but I love not this kinde of reasoning Let them that thirst go to the Fountain and us remember that in the Houshold of BLISSE Riches are made but Servants and not Masters and Rulers because they be for the most part unruly and ambitious and for that cause they have no liberty granted them but are injoyned to serve lowly their Betters and to look no further So that if our Men were Happy or at least lovers of the same their Riches ought to be imployed in their own service that is to purchase and win Wisdome and Vertue and not sent out
Elephant Aristotle indeed is the Author of this Story that the Elephant liveth three hundred years How then shall me mislike in like manner of this Man and refuse his Witness I cannot tell what to say It is a very hard matter that he saith And again I know that when by the power and purse of his King and Scholar Alexander who gave him eight hundred Talents of Silver a huge sum to that use he heaped up a rabble of all kinde of Reports and Hear-sayes into those Books thereof by some called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some false and untrue Tales might creep in among them yet I owe much to that Mans worthiness and again the Books have ever held the place of a true Record And besides this matter of the Elephant both for the fore vouched Causes and for his Wit and Manners somewhat near our Nature may reasonably well agree with the sound of Reason How then I say again Methinks I feel my Minde ebbe and flow within me and yet suppose it true that the Beast liveth so many years The Islanders of Zeil near Calecut and the Inhabitants of the Hill Atho both of them commonly and usually reach our appointed time of one hundred and fifty Years by the favour of the Air onely and Soil where they dwell taking besides for ought I can know the common race and course of the World That we may lawfully deem if they lived as chastly as the Elephant who comes but once in two years to Venery and followed his other good Orders of Life as well that they might easily draw forth their age longer and come to the dayes of the Elephant For as we in our less happy Soils by our own ill Diet and crooked Custom have cut off and lost the better half of our Time so it may seem of them for we must not think in this disorder of the World that any Man fulfilleth the time of Nature but all are swept away with the blast of untimely Death But it may chance that long race of Life which the Author makes the Beast to run was no common and ordinary course in that Kinde but some odde and rare Example And then no doubt as there be some amongst us which by their diligence and I know not by what good hap double the common Term so they be not wanting in those places which sometime prove aged Men and which live twice as long as the common sort that is as long as the Elephant Wherefore for all this or ought else that can be cast against us let us conclude That Man if he kept the good and kindly Diet and Order of Life which other Wights void of Reason by the true and certain guide of Nature keep having more helps and means unto it might live longer than any of them yea and with ease reach the bounds of Long Life appointed and perhaps further also but we have staid in the midst and mean as it were because it seems to obey the secret Will of GOD the better and yet withall to fulfill the whole desire of Nature Then say you it were good to learn the Order of Life which Beasts do use to keep and follow if it were meet and seemly for Men to lead a Beastly Life Do not so take the meaning of a good thing with the snare of a foul and filthy word A Man is not one and single as they be but double and two things and partly a Wight nay a Beast be it spoken with reverence and partly a more divine thing and therefore albeit according to his Divine Part and Reason he ought to follow the Divine Pattern and Form of Life above-set yet as he is a Wight and an earthly Creature also it is not uncomely nay it is necessary to do as they do after a sort And if it were altogether so it were better and more agreeable with the Will of Nature who knoweth best what belongs to Life that is unto her self for Kinde leadeth them still after one due and orderly manner when great variety of Wit and Device guideth us against Minerva's will as they say and quite besides the way of Nature unto a Thousand by and forraign Customs which is the onely Cause of our degeneration from our ancient and first whole and sound Estate Wherefore if a company of pickt and lusty Men and Women would agree to live together in some wilde open clear and sweet Air scatteredly like a Country Village and not like a close and smothered City which one thing prevents a thousand Diseases and Deaths alone and to lie together to the right end of Nature that is for Children and not for Pleasures sake for this was made a Spur to the right purpose and in as seldome and due a course as the better sort of Beasts the ready way to preserve Life and fore-stall Diseases but specially to get good Children and to bring up their Children in Labour and Hardship mingled with much Mirth and Sleep together no small helps to Long Life and Health as the Dieters themselves confess and know But for this Meat and Diet wherein those Leaches offend and fail greatly if they would consent to take no Physick but in great danger cast in by misfortune in which case the Beasts do not want their Remedies never to drink Wine the shortner of Life and to be short not take any Meat and Drink that the fire hath touched for it sunders the Fine from the Gross that is the best from the worst which we now choose but as Nature hath left them and other Wights use them If these things I say were duly kept and performed I am fully perswaded within three or four Generations and Off-springs it would come to pass that we should see this People prove a Nation of Giants not onely passing the age of Beasts and the bounds of Long Life afore-set but wholly recovering and restoring all the Blessings of the first estate of Body And this I gather not by our own contrary Customs onely taking effects as cross and contrary but chiefly by the Life and Use of Giants and lusty People in times past and some other yet at this day which was and is the very self-same race and course which I described And sure for the Inhabitants of Zeil and Atbo which I brought in even now filling the Term of our Long Life although I am not certain of their use and custom and where I finde the Story I know the Cause is laid upon the goodliness of the Soil in the first for it is thought to be the blessed Paradise and upon the goodness of the Air in the next for the height of the Hill without all Wind and Rain two great troubles of Mens bodies yet I am led to think that they do keep the same orderly and kindly form and rule of Life or at the least do draw near unto it because albeit clean Air
and cherish the Life within and you may help and amend Nature and make any Plant flourish and bear in Winter How is that But an easie matter plant it in a Stove and cover the Root with Horse-dung and the rest with Chaff and you shall see the proof if not the profit worth your cost and travel The same is seen in Beasts But let us leave the middle that we come not to the end too late Then why are Children and old Folk less active fruitful and beautiful than the younger sort but for want of heat for let the Sun the first day as Galen saith or before the Birth as I shewed be greatest in store bulk and quantity because it waxeth and waneth still with his food our first Moistner and this from thence decayeth daily yet this quality strength and activity which maketh him worthy the name of Heat is then little as drowned with over-much forreign and strange wetness like as we see in a green Faggot and unable to work his will and shew himself either to knit the Sinews for Strength or concoct the Blood for Seed and Colour before that forreign moisture be spent and gone which is not in long time Now for old Folks what is so clear as this that by reason of the daily decay of the food of Life the fainting heat le ts the strong knot of Strength and Lustiness slack and loose again and the good concoction and colour of Blood which before made Seed and Beauty to decline and grow to waterishness In the same case are sick Men and Women for the same cause And albeit Women have their Seed yet it is not hot and quickning Seed but a dead Stuff onely fit to receive Life and Fashion And admit they be more fair and smooth than Men which are hotter it comes by chance because the foul Leavings the blemish of Beauty by the force of manly heat are driven outwards when the slackness of the heat of Women suffers them to remain within and turn into Menstrues a thing more grievous and noisom in truth than Beauty is delightsome And thereof Aristotle very well calls her a Weak Man which our Tongue more fitly calls a Wombed-man and he makes the Male in all kindes to be that which is able to concoct the Blood and that which is not the Female Then if it be cleared of all doubt that the chief strength of heat is the cause of the flower of Age and Youth and nothing else in the World Let us take and stick to that matter and see how that may be maintained first and then restored I will not urge the way of upholding heat in Plants abovesaid nor yet the witness of the German who hath found out means for the same both in Plants and Wights as he teacheth in his High Opinions Nor yet make Account of those Examples which by course of Nature good Order of Life have done well and drawn near to this matter as of Lucia the Player who pronounced upon the Stage at Rome an hundred years together nor of Cornelia who bare Saturnine the Consul after sixty two years nor yet of King Massâ—nissa who about Ninety got a Childe and ever tâ—avelled both in Frost and Snow bare-headed nor of such other like notably marked with long continued Life and Lustiness I will come to the point at once Pliny such an Autbor reporteth that the whole Nation of India liveth long free from all Diseases well-nigh and grief of Body not once touched with ache of Head Teeth or Eyes nor troubled with spitting all the great Companions as we see of Age that we may gather by likely guess when they know not the Companions the thing it self is unknown to them But what needs any guessing when the same Man sor certain and in plain Terms assureth That in that part of India where the Sun being right over their heads casteth no shadow the Men are five Cubits and two handfuls high and live an hundred and thirty years never waxing Old and being when they Die as in their middle Age and chief Strength and Lustiness what needed more words If this Report be true as we may not easily doubt of such an Author then sure this matter is not impossible as they would have it but all Men if they lived in such an Air and took so good a race of Life as I described I must still fly to that succour might preserve their Youth and never was Old until the term and stint of Life appointed Or if this kinde of teaching be now somewhat stale and bare with wearing yet perhaps some other means may be found for the matter in the Store-house of Skill and Cunning. Let us see much more briefly than we have done before because this part is already well-nigh dispatched so straight is the link of all these helps that one can scarce be loosened without the rest and all must go together Then what means may we finde what preserveth this natural and heavenly Heat of ours the common use taketh hot Meats and Drinks and thinks that these preserveth Heat and Nature as simply as if a Man should put Lime to the Root of a Tree which he loved for as this hastneth the Fruit with Heat but kills the Stock with Drought and soaking up the lively juyce and moisture so in them their hot Meats out of kinde laid to the Root of Life quicken and stir up the Spirits the fruit of Life for a season but withall under-hand drink up and waste the first Moisture that is the whole Stock of Nature and so by softning thus the hardness of Age as if it were Iron in the Fire they make it seem for a time Youthful and Lively yet it is but a vain and empty shew and shadow and as Iron when it comes out of the Fire is the harder for it so they make their Age more unwieldy and draw it on the faster by that means And that is the very cause together with Care and Pleasure why Princes and Nobles by drying up their Bodies in that sort live not so long for the most part nor in so good Health as other Folk and depart especially at such times if the Report be true as those bushed Stars called Comets appear Because whether it be a stedfast Star or an Elemental Flame I am not to dispute such Questions here it is never seen but in very fine and dry Weather which consumes dry Bodies and sends them packing and besides though it be besides my purpose turns good humours into scum called Choler cause of Broil and Sedition and so making as we see the Bush-starr a plain sign of both these matters but causes of neither What then preserveth Heat Learned Men have brought in certain fine fat and aiery Meats as Butter Oyl and Honey and commended them for very great helps and means to preserve Life and Youth for both are done by one way and under one but
sent into the Body to work Long-life Health and Lustiness did not onely strike and kill and put out of Being all foul and gross distempers his own and our enemies but also cherish nourish and feed our Bodies and bring it towards our own Nature even as far as we would by disposing of the quantity you may easily conceive the plain and certain way of this great exchange when you know his most clean fine clear bright and lightsome Nature Now we have dispatched the first part of BLISSE let us go to the second and because we have not done it before though we talked much thereof we will now begin to bound the Matter and make Virtue as Aristotle and Truth teacheth us A mean in our outward deeds and dealings with other Men or A Reason in Manners and Conditions as Plato termeth it all is one The cause of Virtue is likewise set out in the beginning to wit A temperate Body but I left the Proof unto this place which is all the hardness in this cure of Lewdness for if it be once known that Temperateness is the cause of Virtue we shall easily by that temperate Medicine so notable in the speech going before purchase and procure the same And why that is so it hath been so often worn before that we may quite cast it off and leave it being enough in this place to prove that a temperate state of Body is the cause and way to Virtue But first let us see whether all Manners flow from the Body or not and then from what State and Condition of the Body Among them that have searched the Reason and Nature of things the cause of Manners is laid upon the Disposition either of Stars or of Mens Bodies or of their Wills thus or thus framed either by the bent of Nature or by use of Custome Let us scan the matter and yet briefly They cannot flow from the Will of the Mind of Man lest all Men should perforce be good against our daily proof and experience because the Minde of it self as coming from goodness is good and alike good in all Men as I said before And sure no Custome can alter and turn so Divine and Right a Will to lewdness but by great force of Necessity which force cannot be sent and laid upon it by the Stars for whether the Stars be Wights or no they are all as I shewed above of one good strain and quality Or if they were not or whatsoever they be either in substance or quality they cannot touch the Mind immediately but must needs be let in by the loops of the Body and so change and dispose the Body first and by means of this affect the Mind for if the Mind it self a finer thing then the Stars cannot pierce out of the Body as we heard before then much less shall they make way to get in by themselves without the helps to our Mind allotted and as these are all bodily I mean the first helps so the neerest cause of Manners must needs flow from the Body And if the inward Spirits and Wits likewise do nought without the Instruments of the Body and follow the Affection and Disposition of the same then the appetite of the unreasonable Soul common between us and Beasts upon which Aristotle and his heirs do lay the cause of Manners is dispatched also and all the whole strain must needs cleerly run from the Body But lest some All-denier come and shake these old Grounds which you saw the Philosophers lay so long ago and so this Building might fall and tumble I will shoar it up with Experience a thing most fit to fill and please the sence of them which have nothing else but sence As all Diseases so all Manners spring either from the natural and inherited or from the purchased temper of the Body To keep the first till anon This we have either from the Air and Soil where we live or from the Meat which we take The Air followeth either the place of the Sun or the Nature of the Ground But this is somewhat too hard and thorny a kind of teaching let us inlarge our selves and unfold and prove how though I shewed the manner at large before the Air and Meat alters and changeth and maketh to differ the Bodies first and so the Manners All Astronomers and Philosophers no otherwise than we see by proof hold Opinion that where the Sun is either too neer the People as right over them or too far off as under the two Pins of the World there the Bodies are big and strong and the Manners rude and fierce whereas within the two Middle and Temperate Girdles of the Earth they keep a mean and hit the midst as they say both in Body and Manners for that acquaintance with him and his fellow-wanderers To come down to the Ground for I must be short we see that a fat and and foggy Land makes the Blood and Spirits thick and gross and thereby dull and slow and so the Men fond in Wit and rude and simple faithful chast and honest and still in that strain of Manners whereas a barren and dry Ground if the Sun be temperate therewithal as at Rome and Athens maketh the same thin clear and lively subtil and deceitful Men valiant unchaste and so forth of all other properties appertaining For meet Manners in Men are like the Virtues and Properties of Plants following both the sundry tempers of the Bodies when the Soul in them and Mind in us is one in all Then as the mixtures qualities and virtues of Plants are altered up and down according to their Food and Sustenance as to omit the outward nourishment of the Ground whereby Pepper brought out of Calicut into Italy will after a few settings turn into Ivy and such like the case is plain a cunning Gardiner either by steeping the Seed or Slip or better by enclosing the Root or Stock can give to any Plant any colour taste smell or power of Healing even so the temper of Mens Bodies and Condition of their Manners change to and fro upon the same occasion To let go that hold in Physick That distempered Meats do breed the like distempers in those famous Humors which make Complexions and their Conditions why are the Tartarians so Beastly and Barbarous in Manners but because besides their Soil they eat and drink the Flesh and Blood of Horses we see the Islanders of Corsica prove as bold cruel and false as Doggs whose Flesh they feed upon A man may range far in this Field but let us draw neer home It is not without cause that Plutarch Plato and other grave and wise Philosophers give so strait charge of care and heed in the choice of Nurses Is it not like nay in their opinion certain that the Child sucks in with their Milk their outward Shape and inward Manners Why not As well as Beasts that suck of strangers out
of Silver and Gold and Copper adulterando adulteria naturae as he more finely then constantly saith when he had alotted so chast Virtue before unto her But suppose this Virtue in the hard form of Metals not so apparent yet no Man shall deny the daily proof of them opened by rude Skill and set at liberty as the great use of Burnt Brasse Iron-Saffron Metal-smoke and this by Gallen's own witness and marvellous help in Surgery Nay the mighty power both within and without of Antimony which is unripe Lead and of Quick-silver very raw and running Silver so often tried before their Eyes hath so amazed and quite daunted the later Leaches though Galen himself in times past hath termed this rank Poison set straight against our Nature and the least part thereof taken inward to hurt and annoy us to the great laughter of the Countrey Wits which even with Child a dangerous time to take Physick in without any hurt at all nay with speedy and onely help use to drink it against Worms in great quantitie But Galen did but rove by guess at the matter when as in another place forgetting himself as he doth often he saith he never had tried her force neither within nor without the Body But if these Stones Juices and Metals were by greater Skill more finely drest and freely set at liberty as they be by the German what wonders were they like to work in the Art of Healing Neither let us think as Galen and his band thinks of all things that those great and rare Mineral virtues could issue out and come from the gross and foul Body but from an Heavenly gift of a mighty Soul which cannot be kept in awe and held so straâ— with those Earthly bonds as it shall not be able in somâ— sort to stir and break through and shew his force and power Wherefore to return to my purpose If Nature hath bestowed upon these three sorts and suits of Minerals so large Gifts and Virtues what hath she given to Gold the end and perfection of them all which hath passed in that travel through the midst of them all so receiving and holding the Virtues of them all with advantage What say the Leaches to this matter They are loth to say any thing albeit their deeds speak enough when they lay raw Gold to the out-side of the Head to heal his Ache right e against the Heart to comfort his sadness and trembling and when in such sort they apply it to such purposes Again why do they boil it in their d Cullises mix it with their Pills and Electuaries bid the Lepers swallow it c. Do they not seem to smell his great and matchless power against Diseases and marvellous comfort and wholsomness unto our Nature but that like rude and unskilful Cooks they know not how to dress it But if they knew the Skill they should see it rise in Power and Virtue according to his degrees in Freedom and when it came to the top which I call the Sonne of Gold to prove Almighty I mean within our compass for consider Gold is now good and friendly above all unto us for his exceeding store of comfortable Heat of Heaven shining through the mist of a most fine and temperate Body Then what would it be if those properties of Body were by great mingling and breaking of the Stuffe refined and raised in their kind an hundred degrees at least which our Art professeth and those lively and piercing heaps of comfortable Spirits freed and set at liberty and all these seated upon a most mighty Body subduing all things Is there any thing in the World to be compared unto the marvellous Work which he would make in our Body Could any of these very violent and mortal Poisons which I brought in above so easily and roundly destroy as this would help and save us But to come to the Point If that our Old Fine Close and Aethereal Oil which they call a Fifth Nature was able alone for the Reasons set down in their places to breed and beget all those blessed bodily gifts and properties that is Lastingnesse Health Youth and the two springs of Wisdom and Virtue Clearnesse and Temperatenesse How much more shall this Sonne of Gold the Medicine and Stone of HERMES and his Off-spring be sufficient and furnished for it For first when his Soul and Heat of Heaven is much more great and mighty and his Body a more fine and fast Oil that is a more like and lasting Food of Life it both upholdeth and strengtheneth Life and Natural Heat the better and so proves the better cause of Long Life and Youth Then being more temperate and that quality carried upon a finer and tougher that is a stronger Body it is able with more ease and speed to subdue his and our Enemies the distempered Diseases and to cleanse and clear fashion and bring into good order and temper the whole frame of our Body and so procure Health Wisdom and Virtue in better sort and in more full and heaped measure for you must not think that a Fifth Nature of Wine or such like which I brought in heretofore and which many Men do make for their Bodies is so good by twenty degrees as the PHILOSOPHERS STONE I mean the same measure of both when besides that it is not so temperate and near unto Heaven though the name be never so near for it wanteth twenty parts of the Soul and as much of that fine Stuffe closely and finely tied up together and therefore one part thereof will last longer and spread further with all his Virtues and so do more good in our Bodies then twenty times as much of the former Deliver to minde what I say it is worthy marking I shall not need to stand to shew you the Reasons why and manner how this great Medicine of HERMES shall be able to get and purchase these our Blisses of Mind and Body because it is already done at large elsewhere and it may suffice in this place to win by force of Reason which hath been done as much as needs that this Medicine is much better and more able than an Aether Heaven or Fifth Nature Then these Men may see I mean Paracelse and such as know whereof they speak let the rest go how rash and unadvised they prove themselves when they are content to let in the name of Poison into this happy Medicine and to avow that it worketh all those wonders in our Bodies by that way of curing which I shewed by stronger like â—oisons for then it would be at most but a general Medicine and Cure-all against Diseases and fit for Health alone but no blessed way to Long-life Youth Wisdom and Virtue which grant as well as the other both he and all the rest do give unto him for it might not be taken and used in a sound Body no more then a purging Medicine except
canvass of a crafty Wit may be shifted off yet they shall never rid the next that follows of Lead after he hath been taken out of his proper Womb where he was bred and nourished and fashioned into his form for our use requisite yet if it be laid in a moist place under ground it will wax and grow both in weight and bigness by many good Authors yea and by k Galen his own witness which although it be light otherwise yet is of weight in this matter because it maketh so much against his own cause Nay mark what G. Agricola reports that the same hath been found true on the top of houses and shewes where and how the proof was taken But to come to the very point Paracelse saith that Gold buried in a good Soile that lieth East and cherished well with Pigeons dung and urine will do the same and sure I dare not condemn his witnesse in this Matter because the rest that went before seem to say as much in effect and to avow the truth of this Story Then if it be so certain that Gold hath life there is no help but he shall beget his like also if Philosophy and common proof be received But they will say that nothing doth so that wanteth seed as many Wights and Plants doe and all Minerals No man saith so that knoweth what is seed Seed is no grosse thing that may be seen with Eyes but a fine and hot Heavenly breath which we call Life and Soul wherewith not onely the common soul of the World but also Wights yea and perfect Wights sometimes beget without the company and sense of that frothy stuff and shell as I said above but yet most commonly Nature takes the help and guard of that Body called Seed This was proved to be not onely a branch and part slipt from the whole Body but the whole it self sometimes as by kind in the four beginnings and in Minerals and in seedlesse Plants and Wights and by Skill in all Therefore Minerals and all have their Seed and their whole Body is their Seed Then as by Nature they are wholly sowne and die and or else under-moon things would prove mortall rise again the same encreased according to the wont of Nature even so they will above ground if we can by skill use them kindly which we may as well as Nature if we could espy her Footings not unpossible to be seen as I could shew you quickly if I might a little unwind the bottome of secrets and lay them open But I must take heed Then as the seed of Plants and Wights riseth again much encreased in store and bignesse because it drawes unto it and turns into his Nature much of the kindly stuff and ground that lieth about it to corrupt it Even so if you make the Metals a ground fit to receive and corrupt the seed of Gold it will after his due time rise again turning them or much of them into his own Nature Now Dr. Dorne may see if he be not blinded that this is no Riddle matter but a plain and certain Truth grounded upon the open and daily race of Nature which not I spied first as he spied out the subtill falshood but the same all the Troop of the wise Egyptians saw and taught before me yea and some of them that sit in darknesse as those worthy Leaches whose aid we took before Ficine Fernel and Cardane especially the two first because they bare good-wil to the truth of this Science But Cardane as a man that neither knew nor loved it halts a little for when he had all about held for certain that Minerals and all had life and were nourished and grew and waxed yet he buried the third point with silence But let us not urge this so much in this place because it is not the right Son of Gold and Stone of HERMES but a lesser skill and lower way to Riches fit to have been followed in the Second Book Then how doth the PHILOSOPHERS STONE and the naturall Son of Gold it self turn base Metals into Gold For that was the second thing to be handled in this place When this Child is born keep him in his heat which is his life and give him his due and naturall food of Metals he must needs if he be quick able to be nourished digest change and turn them into his own Nature much more easily than Lead and he in a cold place and rude and hard fashion was before able to turn strange meat and digest it And as I shewed above the change of natural things when they meet in Combate to be either throughour or half way that is either by Consuming to raze one another quite out and turn him into his own self-same Nature or when by mixture both their Forces are broken and dulled equally Even so in this great skilfull change we may so order the matter and match the two Combatants that is the Meat and Feeder Stuff and Doer with such proportion that one shall either get the Victory and eat up the other quite or both be maimed alike and weakened To be plain If we give this mighty Child and Son of Gold but a little Food the quantity I leave to discretion he will be able to turn it througly into his own self-same Nature and thereby to mend himself and increase his own heap and quantity But if you will make Gold which is your last end and purpose match your Medicine with a great deal an hundred times as much or so your eyes shall teach you and both shall work alike upon each other and neither shall be changed throughly but make one Mean thing between both which will be Gold if you will or what you will according to your proportion And if you perceive not mark how the comparison is somewhat base but fit and often used by our Men they make a sharp and strong Medicine called Leaven of the best wrought Flouer which is Dough and such another of Milk well mingled in the Calves bag named Rennet and how by matching them with just proportion of Flouer and Milk they turn them into the middle Natures of Dough and Curds Nothing so fit mark it well Nay sith you begin to call me to examples I will ply and load you with them and yet I will lay no strange burthens upon you no not the quick nature of the Scottish sea returning wood into Geese Nor yet the Eagles feathers that lying among Goose quills eat them up two more marvellous changes then all those that are professed in the Art of Changing yet I leave them I say for things too strange and far of my purpose here are many Waters and Earth which I am credibly informed by G. Agricola and others as good Authors are indued with the properties to turn any Plant Wight or Mettal into stone Cardane tells of a Lake in Ireland