naturally keep up above the water yet by enclosing it in some sort of vessel you may violently make it continue under the water II. Of the capricious or extravagant humours of women Upon the second Point it was said It is not here pronounc'd that all women are capricious but only the reason inquir'd of those that are such and why they are more so then men To alledge the difference of souls and suppose that as there is an order in the Celestial Hierarchies whereby the Archangels are plac'd above Angels so the spirits of men are more perfect then those of women were to fetch a reason too far off and prove one obscure thing by another more so Nor is the cause to be found in their bodies taken in particular for then the handsome would be free from this vice the actions which borrow grace from their subject appearing to us of the same nature and consequently their vertues would seem more perfect and their defects more excusable whereas for the most part the fairest are the most culpable We must therefore recur to the correspondence and proportion of the body and the soul. For sometimes a soul lights upon a body so well fram'd and organs so commodious for the exercise of its faculties that there seems more of a God then of a man in its actions whence some persons of either Sex attract the admiration of all world On the contrary other souls are so ill lodg'd that their actions have less of man then of brute And because there 's more women then men found whose spirits are ill quarter'd and faculties deprav'd hence comes their capricious and peevish humour For as melancholy persons whose blood is more heavy are with good reason accounted the more wise so those whose blood and consequently spirits are more agile and moveable must have a less degree of wisdom and their minds sooner off the hooks The irregular motions of the organ which distinguishes their Sex and which is call'd an animal within an animal many times have an influence in the business and increase the mobility of the humours Whence the health of their minds as well as that of their bodies many times suffers alteration A woman fallen into a fit of the Mother becomes oftentimes enrag'd weeps laughs and has such irregular motions as not only torment her body and mind but also that of the Physitian to assign the true cause of them Moreover the manner of living whereunto the Laws and Customs subject women contributes much to their defects For leading a sedentary life wherein they have always the same objects before their eyes and their minds being not diverted by civil actions as those of men are they make a thousand reflections upon their present condition comparing it with those whereof they account themselves worthy this puts their modesty to the rack and oftentimes carries them beyond the respect and bounds which they propos'd to themselves Especially if a woman of good wit sees her self marri'd to a weak husband and is ambitious of shewing her self Another judging her self to merit more then her rival not knowing to whom to complain of her unhappiness does every thing in despight And indeed they are the less culpable inasmuch as they always have the principles of this vice within themselves and frequently find occasions abroad The Second said that the word Caprichio is us'd to signifie the extravagant humour of most women because there is no animal to which they more resemble then a Goat whose motions are so irregular that prendre la chevre signifies to take snuffe without cause and to change a resolution unexpectedly For such as have search'd into the nature of this animal find that its blood is so sharp and spirits so ardent that it is always in a Fever and hence it is that being agitated with this heat which is natural to it it leaps as soon as it comes into the world Now the cause of this temper is the conformation of the Brain which they say is like that of a woman the Ventricles of which being very little are easily fill'd with sharp and biting vapours which cannot evaporate as Aristotle affirms because their Sutures are closer then those of men those vapours prick the Nerves and Membranes and so cause those extraordinary and capricious motions Hence it is that women are more subject to the Meagrim and other diseases of the head then men And if those that sell a Goat never warrant it sound as they do other animals there is no less excuse in reference to women Which caus'd the Emperour Aurelius to say that his Father in law Antoninus who had done so much good to others had done him mischief enough in giving him his daughter because he found so much bone to pick in a little flesh Moreover the Naturalists say that the Goat is an enemy to the Olive-tree especially which is a symbol of peace whereunto women are not over-well affected For not to mention the first divorce which woman caus'd between God and man by her lickorishness her talking her ambition her luxury her obstinacy and other vices are the most common causes of all the quarrels which arise in families and in civil life If you would have a troop of Goats pass over any difficult place you need force but one to do it and all the rest will follow So women are naturally envious and no sooner see a new fashion but they must follow it And Gard'ners compare women and girles to a flock of Goats who roam and browse incessantly holding nothing inaccessible to their curiosity There is but one considerable difference between them the Goat wears horns and the woman makes others wear them The Third said There is more correspondence between a woman and a Mule then between a woman and a Goat for leaving the Etymology of Mulier to Grammarians the Mule is the most teasty and capricious of all beasts fearing the shadow of a man or a Tree overturn'd more then the spur of the rider So a woman fears every thing but what she ought to fear The obstinacy of the Mule which is so great that it has grown into a Proverb is inseparable from the whole Sex most of them being gifted with a spirit of contradiction Mules delight to go in companies so do women the bells and muzzles of the one have some correspondence with the earings and masks of the other and both love priority The more quiet you allow a Mule it becomes the more resty so women become more vitious in idleness neither of them willingly admits the bridle between their teeth The Mule is so untoward that it kicks in the night time while 't is asleep so women are oftner laid then quiet Lastly the Mule that hath seem'd most tractable all its time one day or other pays his master with a kick and the woman that has seem'd most discreet at one time or other commits some notorious folly The Fourth said That those who invented the little
differs from Principle because every Cause is real and imparts a being different from its own which Privation being a Principle hath not And so every Cause is a Principle but every Principle is not a Cause Now a Cause is That which produceth an Effect There are Four Matter Form the Agent and its End Which Number is not drawn from any real distinction between them Seeing many times one and the same Thing is Form Agent and End in several respects So the Rational Soul is the Form of Man the Efficient Cause of his Ratiocination and the next End of the Creation But it is drawn from the four wayes of being a Cause which are call'd Causalities whereof one susteineth the Forms to wit the Matter An Other informeth that Matter and is the Form A Third produceth that Form and uniteth it to the Matter and is the Agent or Efficient Cause The Fourth by its goodness exciteth the Agent to act and is the Final Cause The Second said That the Causes are handled diversly according to the diversity of Sciences The Logician speaks of them so far as he draws from them his Demonstrations Definitions and Probable Arguments The Natural Philosopher inasmuch as they are the Principles of all kind of Alterations hapning in natural bodies The Metaphysitian as Cause is a Species of Entity which is generally divided into Cause and Effect In which consideration Supernatural Things have also some Causes but not all Wherefore in my Judgement said he Cause taken in general cannot be divided into the Four Species above mention'd because Spirits have no Material Cause but it ought to be first divided in reference to Immaterial things into Efficient and Final and into the four abovesaid in respect of Material That Efficient Cause is the first principle of Motion and Rest and is of two sorts viz. Vniversal or Equivocal and Particular or Vnivocal The former can produce several effects of different Species whether it depend not on any other as God and is then call'd the First Cause or depend on some other and is call'd a Second Cause As the Sun which together with Man generates Man The Particular otherwise Univocal Cause is that which produceth one sort of effect alone As Man generateth Man The Material Cause is that of which something is made The Formal Cause is that which causeth the Thing to be that which it is whether Essentially as the Soul makes the Man or Accidentally as a round form makes a Bowle The Final is that which incites the Agent to act as Gain doth the Merchant to Traffick The Third said Matter and Form being parts of the whole cannot be Causes thereof because then they would be Causes of themselves which is absurd Neither is the End a Cause but onely the term and rest of the Cause Besides there are some Ends which are impossible to obtain and are nothing of reality such as a Cause ought to be as when Heliogabalus propounded to himself to become a Woman others to fly to become invisible and the like absurdities So that there is but the Efficient Sole Cause of all Things which is the Internal Idea in God which is nothing else but that Fiat which created the World 'T is that very Cause which produceth all things in all different times and places and acts upon Art Nature and Nothing whence it is that All Entity conformable to that Increated Exemplar beareth those three Characters Truth Goodness and Vnity which all things are bound to represent under the Penalty of becoming Nothing out of which they were produced 'T is a Circle according to Trismegist whose Centre is every where and Circumference no where which possibly mov'd Galen to term Man the Centre of Mixt Bodies and all Antiquity a Little World and made Saint Thomas say that Man hath been united hypostatically to God the Son who is the Idea of the Father for the rejoyning of all the productions of the world to their first Principle Here he fell into Divinity but he was admonish'd to observe the Rules appointed by this Assembly to keep as far off as possible from such Matters and so he ended when he had mention'd the order that is observ'd in the actions of that Idea which said he acteth first upon the Intelligences as nearest approaching to its pure Nature they upon the Heavens these upon the Elements and these upon mixt bodies The Fourth added That that Idea is a Cause not onely in Natural Things but also in Artificial As in the building of a House the Idea which the Architect hath in his Mind excited his Will and this commands the Motive-faculty of the Members or those of his Laborours to dispose the Stones Timber and Morter which entring into the Composition of the Building cannot for the Reason above-mention'd be Causes of it as neither can the proportion and form An Other said That if the Idea be a Cause which cannot be but in Artificial Things it must be the Formal and not the Efficient since it is nothing else but an Original in imitation of which the Artificer labours and since the work derives its form from that Idea which is the Copy It was added by a Sixth That the Idea is not Cause but the true Essence of Things and the first objective Verity which precedes all Knowledge Humane but not Divine and is onely hereby distinct from Nothing in that it is known by God which suteth not with Nothing from which any thing cannot be distinguish'd but it must be if not in Act at least in Power The Seventh amplifying touching Ideas said That upon the Knowledge of them depend all Sciences and Arts but especially all what Men call Inventions which are nothing less then such because 't is no more possible to invent some thing new then to create some substance and make some thing of nothing But as all things are made by Transmutation so no Novelty is produc'd by Imitation either of things which are really existent or which our Mind frames and connects as of a Mountain and Gold it makes a Golden Mountain Thus the four most Excellent Inventions of the Modern Ages The Compass the Gun Printing and Perspective-glasses the two former were deriv'd from Experiments of the Load-stone from the effect of shooting Trunks and Fire As for Printing what is the Matrice wherein the Founders cast their Characters or those Characters compos'd in a flat Form as also Copper-cuts but a perfect Exemplar and Idea which is communicated fully to all its individuals And Perspective-glasses are nothing but ordinary ones multiply'd Another said That Causes cannot be known at all whence it comes to pass that we have no certain Knowledge Now to know is to know a thing by its Causes For the Vniversal Efficient Cause is above us and surpasseth the capacity of our Understanding and hence all the other inferiour and subordinate ones are unknown because their Cause is not known The Final is not in our power and being not so
and would not 3. Their Example and the terrible prospect of their condition holds such in duty as Vice would otherwise drive on to the perpetration of mischief An other said That Slavery is an Institution of the law of nations by which one is contrary to Nature subjected to the Dominion of another Which Dominion before the Emperour Antoninus Pius extended to Life and Death But since that power hath been restrain'd so that he that grievously outraged his Slave was forc'd to sell him But if he kill'd him he incurr'd the same penalty as if he had slain the Servant of another It being for the good of the Common-wealth that none abuse even what belongeth to himself Since that time the Master had absolute Power over his Slave to employ him in all kind of work as he pleased to hire him forth and draw profit by him and in case of non-obedience to chastise him more or less according to the attrocity of his crime Provided that there follow'd not thereby mutilation of Members He hath also Power to alienate him and that Power is extended likewise to the Children which happen to be begotten by him during the servitude The Slave also cannot acquire any thing but it is his Master's Nor can he complain of his master or forsake him for having been lightly punish'd But he may for mortal Hunger or grievous Contumely as if the Master offer to force his Slave in which case the Slave of either Sex running to the Temples Sepulchres and Statues which serv'd them for Sanctuary ought to be sold and his price paid to the Master Now there are Four sorts of Slaves The First and most ancient are such as have been taken in war who of Free-men as they were before being conquer'd become in the power of the Conquerours The Second are those who having deserved Death are condemned to the punishment of the Gallies Common-shores and publick works and anciently to the Mines and Mills in which Mines the Spaniards at this day employ the Americans And they are called Forcats or Slaves of punishment The Third are those who being unable to satisfie their Creditors by reason of their poverty are sold with their own consent and pay the price of their liberty to be acquitted by them that so they may avoid the cruelty of the said Creditors who had to dismember them These three sorts of Servants became such having before been free-men But the Fourth sort is of those that are such by Nature and are born Servants being descended from a Slave Now in my Judgement 't is fitting to introduce and retain these four sorts of Servitude in a State since they are very natural and reasonable For besides that there are Men who are born to command others to obey It seemes that Servitude having been from the Beginning of the World and presently after the Deluge when Noah cursing Canaan his younger Son pronounc'd him Servant of the Servants of his Brethren And being as ancient yea ancienter then the foundation of States and Empires and having been approv'd by ancient Law-givers and wise Politicians and by God himself it cannot be esteemed but reasonable and natural For in the First Place What is so just and so sutable to the Law of Nature The First containing onely Marriages Procreation and Education of Children as to give life to him whom you may justly deprive thereof to feed him and cloath him And in exchange for so many benefits to make use of him and of all that he can earn and to make him return to his duty by some moderate punishments in case he recede from it Which is the advice of Aristotle in his Oeconomicks where he saith That a good Father of a Family ought to give Three Things to his Servants viz. Work Food and Discipline I conceive it also less unsutable to Nature yea to Christianity to make use of Criminals then to put them to death If Example for which principally they are punish'd will permit And also instead of sending so many stout men to the Gallows for common crimes or putting them to the Sword as they do in War to put them to the chain for the service of the publick either for labouring in Buildings Cloysters and Fortificatlons of Cities repairing of wayes cleansing of Streets Towing of Boots drawing of Charriots labouring in High-wayes Mines and other publick works after the Gallies are furnish'd them Possibly too it would not be unmeet that he who is so endebted that he cannot satisfie his Creditors should instead of suffering himself to lie rotting in Goal pay with the Service of his Body what he cannot in Money But it would be fit to use a difference therein And as for those that are born of Slaves is there any thing more ours then such fruits grown within our walls and sprung from our own stock The Last opposed that it is difficult for an Absolute Dominion to keep any measure Witness Quintus Flaminius a Roman Senator who kill'd his Slave to content the curiosity which a Bardash of his had to see what aspect a Man hath when he is dying Besides if there be any place where Liberty ought to carry the Cause were not Christian Brother-hood alone sufficient it is France of which the priviledge is such that the Slaves of any part of the world onely setting their foot therein obtain their freedom immediately The Inventions propounded were the Experiment of Vitruvius's Aeolipila that of walking under the Water and the Subjects of the next Conference The First Water the Second Wine and Whether it be necessary in War CONFERENCE VIII I. Of Water II. Of Wine and whether it be necessary for Souldiers I. Of Water THe Discourse upon the First Point began with the division of the qualities of Water into First and Second alledging that the First viz. Cold and Moist are so manifest that it is difficult to deny them Cold because Water being heated returns presently to its natural coldness Moist because it moistneth more then any other Element and is not contained within its own bounds But its Second and the proprieties resulting from them are so numerous that they justly administer ground to the doubt which is raised Whence proceedeth the cause of so many Varieties in Colour Taste Odour and the other Objects of the Senses Possibly one may assign the cause of the Waters Whiteness to the Mines of Plaster Of its Blackness to those of Iron or Stones of the same colour The Red to those of Cinnabar The Green to those of Copper The Blew to those of Silver The Yellow to those of Orpiment The Hot to Sulphur The Acid to Vitriol The Stinking to Bitumen But that some parts of the Sea and Rivers abound with Fish and that with certain kinds and others not That the Water of some Springs is converted into Stone and all that is cast thereinto Others as they say make Women fruitful or barren Some as it is reported of the Fortunate Islands cause weeping
tyr'd with one season because another soon succeeds it On the contrary we see variety of Food raiseth the languishing Appetite the diversity of Odors which succeed one another delight the Smelling Nothing is more acceptable to the Sight then a Meadow checker'd with several colours or a garden variegated with Tulips and other Flowers of all sorts and hues which the Spring discloses Harmony proceeds from the variety of Notes and the Orator who would move his Auditors must not speak too long upon the same thing in the same words he must alter his gesture and voice and the pauses which distinguish his action are very serviceable to that purpose But as there is nothing more swift then the Sight so no Sense is sooner weary with the semblance of its objects The reason whereof is this being a most active sense its operation doth not make it self perceiv'd by the Eye but by the changing of the object So that when it beholds alwayes the same thing it seemes to it self as if it beheld nothing Look upon the Earth all cover'd with Snow or a Chamber wholly hung with Black or some other single colour the Sight is offended therewith If Green offends us less it is because it is compounded of Yellow and Blew and the best blended of all the Colours and as such reunites the visual rayes between its two extremes yet it affordeth nothing near the delightfulness that ariseth from the variety of Tapistry I conceive therefore that the chief end of the diversity of Countenances is Distinction and lest the same thing should betide Women that did Alcmena in Plautus who suffer'd Jupiter to quarter with her because she took him for her Husband Amphitryo But the subordinate end is the Contentment which Man finds in this variety As for other causes the Efficient indeed doth something for Children commonly resemble their Fathers and Mothers But the Material contributes very much hereunto so that they who for example are begotten of a Masculine and Feminine Geniture wherein the sanguine temper is equally prevalent resemble one another and have a ruddy and well shap'd Countenance But because 't is next to impossible that the said temper should be equally found in two different subjects thence ariseth the variety of Complexions and Lineaments The Second said There is as great variety in all natural things as in Faces though it be not so remarkable to us For we see Birds and Beasts distinguish one another very well Now the Final Cause of this Diversity seemes to me to be the ornament of the World which otherwise would have nothing less then the importance of its name Musick and Painting receive graces from things which in reality are nothing namely Pauses which are onely privations of Notes and shadows which are defects of light This diversity of Visages which ariseth from that of the persons and their inclinations is as well contributary to the splendour and beauty of a state as of nature For if all things were alike there would be a confus'd identity and general disorder not much different from the ancient Chaos Nothing would be acted in Nature for action is not between things like but between things contrary Nor would there be Beauty in the Countenance if there were not diversity in the parts but all the Face were Eye or Nose For Beauty ariseth from Proportion and this from the correspondence of many different parts Very little would there be amongst Men if all were alike there being no Beauty when there is no deformity whereunto it may be compar'd and who so takes away Beauty takes away Love of which it is the foundation This divine link of humane society would be destroy'd for Love is a desire to obtain what we want and another possesseth and therefore it cannot exist but between persons unlike Nor could a State consist longer because all Men being externally alike would be so internally too all would be of the same profession and no longer seek to supply one anothers mutual necessities Now this diversity of persons proceeds from the divers mixture of the four Humours which being never found twice temper'd in the same sort each one having his peculiar constitution which the Physitians call Idiosyncrasie they never produce the same person twice nor consequently one and the same surface or external shape alike If the Matter design'd to constitute and nourish the bones be in too great quantity the Man is born robust large and bony if it be defective he becomes a dwarf and a weakling Again this Matter according as it carried to every bone in particular gives a differing conformation to the same which is also derived to the Muscles spread over those bones from which they borrow the external figure which they communicate to the skin The Third said He found two Causes of the Diversity of Countenances One in Heaven The other in the Heads of Women namely in their Imaginations Heaven is never found twice in the same posture by reason of the manifold Motions and Conjunctions of the Planets and yet 't is the Sun and Man that generate a Man and what is said of the Sun ought likewise to be understood of the other Coelestial Bodies It is necessary then that this variety in the Cause produce also variety in the Effect Hence it is that Twins have so great resemblance together as having been conceiv'd and born under the same Constellation As for the Imagination 't is certain that of the Mother which intervenes at the time of Conception more powerfully determines the shape and colour of the Foetus then any other Cause as appears by the marks which Infants bring with them from their Mothers Womb who well remember that such things were in their Phancy and that they had a vehement apprehension of the same So that as many different Imaginations as Women have when they conceive make so many Countenances and other parts of the Body different II. Whether is the more noble Man or Woman Upon the Second Point it was said That in times of old there was found at Rome a Widower that had buried two and twenty Wives and at the same time a Widow that survived her two and twentieth Husband these two the people of Rome constrain'd to marry together after which both Men and Women awaited which of the two would dye first at length the Woman dy'd first and all the Men even to the little Boyes went to her interment every one with a branch of Lawrel in his Hand as having obtaind the victory over that Sex This Question of the nobleness and dignity of the one above the other is of greater consequence then that other in which not onely Women very frequently get the better there being more old women then old men through the sundry dangers whereunto men are expos'd and from which women are exempted but also Stags and Ravens which live hundreds of years much surpass either of them But one of the greatest difficulties arising in the
necessary Page 431 CONFERENCE LXXIII I. Of the Earth-quake II. Of Envy Page 437 CONFERENCE LXXIV I. Whence comes trembling in men II. Of Navigation and Longitudes Page 441 CONFERENCE LXXV I. Of the Leprosie why it is not so common in this Age as formerly II. Of the ways to render a place populous Page 447 CONFERENCE LXXVI I. Of Madness II. Of Community of Goods Page 452 CONFERENCE LXXVII I. Of Sorcerers II. Of Erotick or Amorous Madness Page 457 CONFERENCE LXXVIII I. Why the Sensitive Appetite rules over Reason II. Whether Speech be natural and peculiar to Man Page 461 CONFERENCE LXXIX I. What the Soul is II. Of the apparition of Spirits Page 466 CONFERENCE LXXX I. Of the Epilepsie or Falling-sickness II. Whether there be any Art of Divination Page 471 CONFERENCE LXXXI I. Of Chiromancy II. Which is the noblest part of the Body Page 475 CONFERENCE LXXXII I. Which is most powerful Art or Nature II. Whether Wine is most to be temper'd in Winter or in Summer Page 480 CONFERENCE LXXXIII I. Of Baths II. Whether the Wife hath more love for her Husband or the Husband for his Wife Page 485 CONFERENCE LXXXIV I. Of Respiration II. Whether there be any certainty in humane Sciences Page 489 CONFERENCE LXXXV I. Whether the manners of the Soul follow the temperament of the Body II. Of Sights or Shews Page 495 CONFERENCE LXXXVI I. Of the Dog-days II. Of the Mechanicks Page 500 CONFERENCE LXXXVII I. Whether the Souls Immortality is demonstrable by Natural Reasons II. Whether Travel be necessary to an Ingenious Man Page 505 CONFERENCE LXXXVIII I. Which is the best sect of Philosophers II. Whence comes the diversity of proper Names Page 512 CONFERENCE LXXXIX I. Of Genii II. Whether the Suicide of the Pagans be justifiable Page 517 CONFERENCE XC I. Of Hunting II. Which is to be preferr'd the weeping of Heraclitus or the laughing of Democritus Page 522 CONFERENCE XCI I. Whether heat or cold be more tolerable II. Who are most happy in this World Wise Men or Fools Page 527 CONFERENCE XCII I. Which is most healthful moisture or dryness II. Which is to be preferr'd the Contemplative Life or the Active Page 531 CONFERENCE XCIII I. Of the spots in the Moon and the Sun II. Whether 't is best to use severity or gentleness towards our dependents Page 536 CONFERENCE XCIV I. Of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon II. Whether all Sciences may be profitably reduc'd to one Page 544 CONFERENCE XCV I. Of the diversity of Wits II. Of New-years Gifts Page 548 CONFERENCE XCVI I. Of Place II. Of Hieroglyphicks Page 554 CONFERENCE XCVII I. Of Weights and the causes of Cravity II. Of Coat-Armour Page 559 CONFERENCE XCVIII I. Of the causes of Contagion II. Of the ways of occult Writing Page 566 CONFERENCE XCIX I. Of Ignes fatui II. Of Eunuchs Page 571 CONFERENCE C I. Of the Green-sickness II. Of Hermaphrodites Page 575 THE First Conference I. Of Method II. Of Entity I. Of Method EVery one being seated in the great Hall of the Bureau Report was made That the Resolve of the last Conference was to Print the Matters which should be propos'd henceforward and the Disquisitions upon them which deserv'd it As also that for the bringing in of all the most excellent Subjects that are found in the Sciences and for the doing it orderly the Method requisite to be observ'd therein should this day be taken into consideration The practice of which Method was likewise thought fit to be begun upon the most Universal Subject which is Entity Wherefore every one was intreated to set cheerfully about opening the way in this so pleasant and profitable an Enterprize The first Speaker defin'd Method The succinct order of things which are to be handled in Arts and Sciences and said that it is of two sorts One of Composition which proceedeth from the Parts to the Whole and is observ'd in Speculative Disciplines The other of Resolution which descendeth from the whole to the parts and hath place in Practical disciplines He said also that hereunto might be added the Method of Definition which is a way of defining a thing first and then explicating the parts of its definition but it participateth of both the former The second said That besides those two general Methods there is a particular one which is observ'd when some particular Subject is handled according to which it behoveth to begin with the Name or Word Distinguish the same by its divers acceptations then give the Definition assign its Principles and Causes deduce its Proprieties and end with its Species or Parts After this some dilated upon the Method of Cabalists which they begin with the Archetypal World or Divine Idea thence descend to the World Intellectual or Intelligences and lastly to the Elementary which is Physicks or Natural Philosophy That of Raymond Lullie follow'd next And here the Difference of humane judgements came to be wonder'd at Most other Nations could never fancy this Art which he calls Great and Wonderful and yet the Spaniards profess it publickly at Majorca in a manner ingrossing it from all other places He maketh the same to consist in thirteen Parts The first of which he calleth the Alphabet from B to K to each of whose Letters he assigneth 1. a Transcendent after his mode 2. a Comparison 3. a Question 4. a Substance 5. a Virtue and 6. a Vice as to B 1. Goodness 2. Difference 3. Whether a thing is 4. Deity 5. Justice 6. Covetousness To C 1. Greatness 2. Agreement 3. What it is 4. Angel 5. Prudence 6. Gluttony and so of the rest The Second Part containes 4. Figures The Third Definitions Then follow Rules Tables containing the several combinations of Letters The Evacuation Multiplication and mixture of Figures The 9. Subjects The Application The Questions The custome and manner of teaching which I should deduce more largely unto you but that they require at least a whole Conference In brief such it is that he promiseth his disciples that they shall be thereby enabled to answer ex tempore yet pertinently to all questions propounded unto them The fifth said That there was no need of recurring to other means then those of the Ordinary Philosophy which maketh two sorts of Order namely one of Invention and another of Disposition or Doctrine which latter is the same thing with the Method above defined And as for the Order of Invention it is observed when some Science is invented in which we proceed from Singulars to Universals As after many experiences that the Earth interpos'd between the Sun and the Moon caus'd a Lunar Eclipse this Vniversal Conclusion hath been framed That every Lunar Eclipse is made by the interposition of the Earth between the Sun and the Moon An other alledg'd that Method might well be call'd a Fourth Operation of the Mind For the First is the bare knowledge of things without affirmation or negation The Second is a Connexion of those naked Notices
these two points were chosen First Of the Hairy Girl seen in this City Secondly Whether it be more difficult to resist Pleasure then Pain CONFERENCE XI I. Of the little Hairy Girl lately seen in this City II. Whether it is more easie to resist Pleasure then Pain I. Of the Hairy Girl THe First said That this German Girl born at Ausperg called Barbara Vrsine the Name and Sir-name very well suting to the person if they were not invented purposely is no Monster For a Monster is desin'd a Natural Effect degenerating from the right and usual frame or perfection essential to its species But the same holdeth not in this person who is onely an extraordinary effect of Nature whereof two causes may be assign'd First the prevalence of internal heat which more powerfully drives outwards the steames or exhalations that serve for the matter of Hair and is also the cause that Children are sometimes born with Teeth Whence it comes to pass that Hair grows in more places and more plentifully in those which are hot and dry In like manner it hath been observ'd that some notable Warriours and Pirats have had their Hearts hairy The Second Cause is the strong Imagination of the Mother during her conceiving or in the dayes near it when the Embryo being like soft wax is capable of every impression never so little proportionate to its subject yea sometimes it is so extravagant that the effect cannot be attributed to any other cause Such was that young Girl mention'd by Marcus Damascenus and presented to the Emperour Charles IV. which besides that she was all hairy like this had the feet of a Camel her Mother having too wistly consider'd the Image of Saint John Baptist clothed in Camel's hair And this consideration satisfi'd the Father who at first disown'd her The same was the Opinion of Hippocrates when he sav'd the Honour and Life of a Princess who had brought forth an Aethiopian through the too attentive minding of the picture of a Moor hanging at her beds-feet Which mov'd Galen to advise such Ladies as would have fair Children to behold those that are such frequently at least in picture The Second said That this Hair being an Effect against the Intention as well of Vniversal Nature which could not design any profit from a bearded Woman as of the particular Agents which designed to produce an Individual like to one of themselves according to the ordinary course it follows that the Girl must be termed a Monster The Cause whereof cannot be the indisposition of the Matter nor its too great quantity or deficience since all the parts of this Child being well proportioned and her colour native conclude and argue the same as to the humours of her Body Yet it may well proceed from some exorbitance in quality not caus'd by the formative virtue but by the Imagination of the Mother For that of the Father contributes nothing hereunto That the Formative Virtue doth not the business is prov'd because the Hair is a fuliginous vapour arising from the more dry and earthy parts of the residue and excrement of the third Concoction which is made in the parts and the Expulsive Faculty casteth forth as useless and unsutable the same arriving at the skin is imprison'd thereby the Cuticle And Nature which hath no further need of it hinders its return Now this Matter is forc'd to abide thus till it make it self way through the Pores fram'd by its heat rarifying the skin During its stay there it is concocted incrassated hardened and puts on the figure of the Pore through which it issueth As the soft Matter of Glass is incrassated by the heat and takes the form of the mould in which it is formed Hence it is that they whose skin is tender have very soft Hair For their skin being by reason of its great rarity unable to resist the least heat easily opens its Pores which thereby become very small to give the vapour passage which vapour because it stay'd not long enough to be concocted and hardned produceth very soft gentle and loose Hair On the other side in those whose skin is hard and dry the resistance of the same causeth the inclosed heat to act more vehemently and consequently to make greater Pores through the which those vapours passing after a longer inclosure produce a Hair thicker dryer and harder as having been more parched and adur'd For the vapour is by this means thickned and hardned like the smoak which is condens'd into soot in the Chimney Now the Formative Virtue cannot be the cause of this production of Hair in all parts of the Body of this person First because heat the cause efficient is at that time too weak through defect of which we see that a dozen or fifteen years after the birth Hair is not produc'd even in Males Secondly the Matter of this little Body is too soft to furnish stuff dry enough for the making of that fuliginous vapour It remaineth therefore that it be ascrib'd to the Imagination of the Mother who being a Superior Agent many times hinders the Formative Virtue from doing what it designeth That she is Superior it is true For the Formative Virtue belongeth to the Vegetative Life Man begetting onely as he is Vegetative God alone begetteth by the Vnderstanding but the Imagination is a Faculty of the Sensitive Life and so subjecteth the less to it self as the Agent which operateth by the Understanding makes use of that which operateth by Nature So the Smith though a mean Artisan yet makes use of Fire the most noble Elementary Agent as a Slave Now the Imagination acteth in this manner It presents to the Woman some pleasing object this object excites her Appetite the Appetite by its dominion and command moves the Motive Faculty the performer of its pleasure This Motive Faculty discharging its Office by the Spirits which it sets in Motion and sends forth as it lists And these Spirits having their Source and Original in the Brain upon which the Phantasmes of the Imagination are imprinted it comes to pass that when a Child-bearing Woman hath a lively representation or Imagination of the thing which she desires those Spirits upon which the Image is imprinted coming to be sent forth by the Motive Faculty and separating from the rest of their troop which is in the Brain carry along with them the said Image or Effigies The same hapning in the Brain that doth in a Looking-glass which being intire sheweth but one Object but broken into a hundred pieces every piece representeth the same whole For the Nature of Species is of it self indivisible and is not divided but because of the subject in which they are So the Phantasme being in the Brain representeth but one and the same thing but a part of the Spirits upon which it is engraven separating from thence carry the same along with them And arriving with the blood and humours at the faetus which incessantly draws them from the Mothers
as Cardan conceiveth For on the contrary all things become Hot by motion the Lead upon Arrows is melted and the Wood fired Water becomes thinner and hotter But the cause thereof is for that a strong Wind or Hot Air driven violently draws all the neighbouring Air after it which Air is Cold and we feel the coldness thereof Whence all strong Winds are alwayes cold The Third said We ought not to seek other causes of Natural Winds then those we find in Artificial Wind because Art imitates Nature Artificial Winds such as those of our Bellows the most common instruments thereof are caus'd by a compression of the Air made by two more solid Bodies then themselves which thrust the same thorow a narrower place then that of their residence For the Bellows having suck'd in a great quantity of Air when it s two sides draw together they drive out the same again with violence And this is that which they call Wind. In like manner I conceive two or more Clouds falling upon and pressing one another impetuously drive away the Air which is between them So we blow with our Mouths by pressing the Air inclos'd in the Palate and shutting the Lips to streighten its eruption Hereunto they agree who desine Wind to be Air stirr'd mov'd or agitated But if it be objected that the Clouds are not solid enough to make such a compression the contrary appears by the noise they make in Thunder-claps The Fourth alledg'd That Winds are produc'd in the World as they are in Man namely by a Heat sufficient to elevate but too weak to dissipate Exhalations whether that Heat proceedeth from Coelestial Bodies or from Subterranean Fires Wherefore as Hot Medicaments dissipate flatuosities so the great Heat of the Sun dissipates Winds The Fifth added It is hard to determine the Original of Winds after what our Lord hath said thereof That we know not whence they come nor whither they go and what David affirmeth That the Lord draweth them out of his Treasures NevertheIess I conceive that different causes ought to be assign'd of them according to their different kinds For although Winds borrow the qualities of the places through which they pass whence the Southern and Eastern are moist and contagious because of the great quantity of Vapours wherewith they are laden by coming over the Mediterranean Sea and the Ocean yet some Winds are of their own Nature Hot and Dry making the Air pure and serene being caus'd by an Exhalation of the like qualities Others are so moist that they darken the Air because they are produc'd of Vapours Some places situated near Mountains and Rivers have particular Winds But as for those which blow at certain Periods either every year or every second year or every fourth year as one that blows in Provence I refer them to the Conjunction of certain Plants which reign at that time The Sixth said That Air hath a natural motion of its own as the Heavens have otherwise it would corrupt but meeting some streights and finding it self pen'd up it rallies and reunites its forces to get forth as it doth with violence and set it self at Liberty And this with so much the more vehemence as the places through which it passeth are streighter Whence it is that we alwayes perceive a Wind near a Door or Window half open or the mouth of a Cave which ceaseth when they are set wide open The Seventh continu'd That which is most difficult to conceive in reference to the Wind is its violence which I hold to proceed from the Rarefaction of a matter formerly condens'd and from the opposition of a contrary For the place of the Generation of Wind being either the Cavernes of the Earth or the Clouds the vaporous matter becoming rarifi'd so suddenly that it cannot find room enough to lodge in breaks forth impetuously as we see the Bullet is by the same reason violently driven forth by the Air enflamed in the Cannon Some think that Winds arise also from the Sea because a Wave is alwayes seen upon the changing of the Wind to rise on that side from whence it is next to blow The Eighth said That their motion is a direct line because it is the shortest way but not from below upwards by reason of the resistance they meet with in the coldness and thickness of the Middle Region of the Air whence the same thing happens to them that doth to smoak or flame which arriving at a ceiling or vault is constrain'd by the resistance it finds thereby to decline on one side Also their violence is increas'd by the adjunction of new Exhalations as Rivers augment theirs by the access of new streams II. Why none are contenteà with their own condition Upon the Second Point it was said That since the inferior World follows the course of the superior and Coelestial it is not to be wonder'd if the latter being in continual motion and agitation the former whereof Man makes the noblest part cannot be at rest For the Starrs according to their several Positions Aspects or Conjunctions move and carry us to desire sometimes one thing sometimes another The Ambition and Ignorance of Man are of the party too The former makes him alwayes desire to have the advantage above others to pursue Honours and Dignities and to think that to acknowledge a greater then himself is to own fetters and servility The latter represents things to him otherwise then they are and so causes him to desire them the more by how much he less understands their imperfections Whence many times by changing he becomes in as ill a case as Aesop's Ass who was never contented with his condition But the true Cause in my opinion is because we cannot find in this World a supreme temporal Good whereunto a concurrence of all outward and inward goods is requisite and were a Man possess'd thereof yet he could have no assurance that he shall enjoy it to the end of his Life whence living in fear of losing it we should be prone to desire something that might confirm it The Dignity of the Soul furnisheth me with another reason of our discontentment For she being deriv'd from Heaven and knowing that this is not her abiding City she may taste of terrene things but findeth them not season'd to her gust as knowing that frail and mortal things are not worthy of her nor sutable to her eternity And as a sick person that turns himself first on one side then on the other to take rest so the Soul finds her repose in motion And as morsels swallow'd down have no more savour so the present goods which our Soul possesseth give her no pleasure but like a Hunter she quits the game which she hath taken to pursue another The Second said Though by a wise Providence of Nature every one loves his own condition as much or more then another doth yet there being alwayes some evil mix'd with and adhering to the most happy state in the world
that evil is the cause that we are never contented therewith I add further If it were possible to heap all the goods of the world into one condition and all kind of evils were banish'd from the same yet could it not fill the Appetite of our Soul which being capable of an infinite Good if she receive any thing below infinite she is not fill'd nor contented therewith Nevertheless this dissatisfaction doth not proceed from the infirmity and ignorance of the Humane Soul but rather from her great perfection and knowledge whereby she judging all the goods of the world less then her self the goods intermingled with miseries serve her for so many admonitions that she ought not to stay there but aspire to other goods more pure and solid Besides these I have two natural reasons thereof First Every Good being of it self desirable every one in particular may desire all the goods which all Men together possess Yet it is not possible for him to obtain them wherefore every one may desire more then he can possess Whence there must alwayes be frustrated desires and discontents Secondly The Desires of Men cannot be contented but by giving them the enjoyment of what they desire Now they cannot be dealt withall butas a bad Physitian doth with his Patients in whom for one disease that he cures he causeth three more dangerous For satisfie one Desire and you raise many others The poor hungry person asketh onely Bread give it him and then he is thirsty and when he is provided for the present he is sollicitous for the future If he hath money he is troubled both how to keep it and how to spend it Which caus'd Solomon after he had deny'd his Soul nothing that it desir'd to pronounce That All is vanity and vexation of Spirit The Third conceiv'd That the Cause of this Dissatisfaction is for that the conditions of others seem more suitable to us and for that our Election dependeth on the Imagination which incessantly proposeth new Objects to the Soul which she beholding afar off esteemes highly afterwards considering them nearer sees as the Fable saith that what she accounted a treasure is but a bottle of Hay The Fourth said That because every thing which we possess gives us some ground of disgust and we do not yet perceive the inconvenience of the thing we desire therefore we are weary of the present and hope to find less in the future Whence we despise the one and desire the other The Fifth added That Man being compos'd of two parts Body and Soul which love change it is necessary that he love it too Choose the best posture and the best food you will it will weary you in a little time Let the most Eloquent Orator entertain you with the most excellent Subject suppose God himself you will count his Sermon too long if it exceed two hours or perhaps less Is it a wonder then if the Whole be of the same Nature with the Parts The Sixth attributed the Cause of this Discontent to the comparison which every one makes of his own State with that of others For as a Man of middle stature seemes low near a Gyant so a Man of moderate fortune comparing his own with the greater of another becomes discontented therewith Wherefore as long as there are different conditions they of the lowest will always endeavour to rise to the greatest and for the taking away of this Displeasure Lycurgus's Law must be introduc'd who made all the people of Sparta of equal condition If it be reply'd that nevertheless they of the highest condition will be contented I answer that our Mind being infinite will rather fancy to it self Epicurus's plurality of worlds as Alexander did then be contented with the possession of a single one and so 't will be sufficient to discontent us not that there is but that there may be some more contented then our selves The Seventh said That the Cause hereof is the desire of attaining perfection which in Bodies is Light whence they are alwayes chang'd till they become transparent as Glass and in Spirits their satisfaction which is impossible For Man having two principles of his Actions which alone are capable of being contented namely the Vnderstanding and the Will he cannot satiate either of them One truth known makes him desire another The sign of a moderate Mind is to be contented with it self whereas that of a great Mind is to have alwayes an insatiable appetite of knowing Whence proceedeth this It is for that it knows that God created every thing in the world for it and that it cannot make use thereof unless it have an exact and particular knowledge of the virtues and properties of all things It knows also that it self was created for God and the knowledge of the Creatures is nothing but a means to guide it to that of God So that if it take those means which lead it to the end for the end it self it deceives it self and finds not the contentment which it seeks and will never find the same till it be united to its First Principle which is God who alone can content the Vnderstanding His Will is also hard to be satifi'd The more goods it hath the more it desires It can love nothing but what is perfect It finds nothing absolutely perfect but goodness it self For the Light and knowledge wherewith the Understanding supplieth it discover to it so many imperfections and impurities in the particular goods it possesseth that it distasts and despises them as unworthy to have entertainment in it Wherefore it is not to be wonder'd if Man can never be contented in this world since he cannot attain his utmost End in it either for Body or Soul CONFERENCE XIX I. Of the Flowing and Ebbing of the Sea II. Of the Point of Honour I. Of the Flux of the Sea THe First said That if there be any other cause of this Flux then the heaping together of the Waters from the beginning under the Aequinoctial by Gods Command whence they descend again by their natural gravity and are again driven thither by the obedience which they owe to that Command which is so evident that they who sail under the Aequator perceive them selves lifted up so high by the currents that are usually there that they are many times terrifi'd thereat there is none more probable then the Moon which hath dominon overall moist Bodies and augments or diminishes this Flux according as she is in the increase or the wane The Second said That the Moon indeed makes the Flux and Reflux of the Sea greater or less yea she governes and rules it because being at the Full she causeth a Rarefaction of its Waters But this doth not argue that she is the Efficient Cause of the said Flux The Sea rises at the shore when the Moon riseth in the Heaven and retires again when the Moon is going down their motions are indeed correspondent one to the other yet I know not how
into Water but this moist Air is full of damp vapours which are nothing but Water rarifi'd and which meeting with those cold and solid Bodies are condens'd and return'd to their first Nature Wherefore the Air is so far from being the cause of so many Springs and Rivers which water the Earth that on the contrary all the Air in the world provided it be not mixt with Water cannot make so much as one drop It is more probable that in the beginning of the world when God divided the Elements and the Waters from the Waters which cover'd the whole surface of the Earth he gather'd the grossest and most unprofitable water into one mass which he called Sea and dispersed through the rest of the Earth the fresh Water more clear and pure to serve for the necessities of the Earth Plants and living Creatures Moreover the Scripture makes mention of four great Rivers issuing out of the terrestrial Paradise and a Fountain in the middle of it which water'd the whole surface of the Earth from the Creation In not being possible that Air resolv'd into Water could make so great a quantity of waters in so little time The Fifth added That those Waters would soon be dry'd up without a new production for which Nature hath provided by Rain which falling upon the Earth is gather'd together in Subterraneous Cavernes which are as so many Reservers for Springs according to Seneca's opinion This is prov'd 1. Because in places where it rains not as in the Desarts of Arabia and Aethiopia there is scarce any Springs on the other side they are very frequent in Europe which aboundeth with rain 2. Waters are very low in Summer when it rains but little and in Winter so high that they overflow their banks because the season is pluvious 3. Hence it is that most Rivers and Springs break forth at the foot of Mountains as being but the rain water descended thither from their tops The Sixth said That it is true that Rivers are increased by Rain but yet have not their original from it For were it so then in great droughts our Rivers would be dry'd up as well as the Brooks As for Springs they are not so much as increas'd by Rain for we see by experience that it goes no deeper into the earth then seven or eight feet On the contrary the deeper you dig the more Springs you meet with Nor is the Air in my judgement the cause thereof there being no probability that there is under the earth cavernes so spacious and full of Air sufficient to make so great a quantity of Water since there needs ten times as much Air as Water to produce it Neither can the Sea be the cause of Springs since according to the Maxime of Hydraulick Water cannot ascend higher the place of its original but if Springs were from the Sea then they could not be higher then the level thereof and we should see none upon the tops of Mountains Now that the Sea lies lower then Springs and Rivers is apparent because they descend all thitherwards The Seventh said That Waters coming from the Sea and gliding in the bowels of the Earth meet with Subterranean Fires which are there in great quantity whereby they are heated and resolv'd into Vapours These Vapours compos'd of Water and Fire mounting upwards meet some Rocks or other solid Bodies against which they stick and are return'd into Water the Fire which was in them escaping through the Pores of those Bodies the Water trickles forth by the clefts and crevisses of the Rocks or other sloping places The Eighth said That as Art can draw forth Water by Destillation Expression and other wayes taught by Chymistrie so by stronger reason Nature cannot want wayes to do the same and possibly in divers sorts according to the various disposition of places and of the matter which she employes to that use II. Whether there is any Ambition commendable Upon the Second Subject it was said That there is some correspondence between the two Questions for as Water serves for a Medium of Union in natural Composition so Ambition serves to familiarise pains and dangers in great enterprizes For it makes Children strive to get credit in little exercises and Men think nothing so high but may be soar'd to by the wings of Ambitior Juvenal indeed gives Wings to necessity when he saith A Hungry Greek will fly up to Heaven if they command him and Virgil saith Fear adds Wings to the heels of the terrifi'd but those of Ambition are much more frequent in our Language 'T is true Ambition may many times beat and stretch forth its Wings but can no more exalt it self into the Air then the Estrich Sometimes it soars too high as Icarus did and so near the light that it is burnt therein like Flyes For the ambitious usually mounts up with might and main but thinks not how he shall come down again This Passion is so envious that it makes those possess'd therewith hate all like themselves and justle them to put them behind Yea it is so eager that it meets few obstacles which yield not to its exorbitant pertinacy insomuch that it causeth Men to do contrary to do what they pretend and shamefully to obey some that they may get the command over others The importunateness of Ambition is proof against all check or denyal and the ambitious is like the Clot-burr which once fastned upon the clothes is not easily shaken off When he is once near the Court neither affronts nor other rubs can readily repell him thence And because his Essence consists in appearance he many times wears his Lands upon his back and if he cannot at once pride himself in his Table his Clothes and his Train yet he will rather shew the body of a Spaniard then the belly of a Swiss At his coming abroad he oftentimes picks his teeth while his gutts grumble he feeds upon aiery viands When he ha's been so lucky as to snap some office before he ha's warm'd the place his desires are gaping after another He looks upon the first but as a step to a second and thinks himself still to low if he be not upon the highest round of the ladder where he needs a good Brain lest he lose his judgement and where it is as hard to stand as 't is impossible to ascend and shameful to descend Others observing That Honour is like a shadow which flyes from its pursuers and follows those that flie it have indeed no less Ambition then the former for I know no condition how private soever that is free from it but they artificially conceal it like those who carry a dark Lanthorn in the night they have no less fire then others but they hide it better They are like Thieves that shooe their Horses the wrong way that they may seem by their steps to come from the place whither they are going or else like those who hunt the Hyena This Beast loves the voice
discussion of this Controversie is that there is no Judge found but is interessed in the Cause Do not think that the determination of this Point is of little importance For we should have none of those dismal feuds both in high and mean families did not women go about to command over men instead of obeying them Now whether the business be fairly arbitrated or whether it be yielded out of complacency to that Sex which loves to be commanded and out of pity its frugality and weakness upon examination of the reasons of either side I find it safer to suspend my judgement that I may neither betray my own party nor incense the other which they say is not so easily reconciled as it is offended The Second said That the courtship and suing which Men use to Women is a tacite but sufficient argument of the esteem wherein they hold them for we do not seek after a thing which we under-value But the praecellence of Women above Men is principally argu'd from the Place the Matter and the Order of their Creation For Man had not the advantage to be created in the Terrestrial Paradise as Woman had who also was produc'd out of a more noble matter then he for he was made out of the Earth and she out of one of the Man's ribbs And as for the Order of the Creation God in the production of Mixt Bodies begun with the meanest things and ended with the noblest He first made the Earth and the Sea then Plants Fishes and the other Brutes After which he created Man as the Master of all things and lastly Woman as the Master-piece of Nature and the Model of all Perfections Mistress of Man stronger then he as the Scripture saith and consequently Mistress of all the Creatures Moreover there is no sort of Goods but are found in a higher degree in Woman then in Man For as for the Goods of the Body the chief whereof is Beauty Men have therein utterly lost the cause which they will be as little able to carry in reference to the Goods of the Mind For the same are found more vigorous and attain sooner to maturity in Women who upon that account are by the Laws adjudg'd Puberes at twelve years of age and Boyes not till fourteen They commonly perform more actions of Virtue then Men and indeed they have more need thereof to with-stand the assaults continually made upon their Chastity which is not too often found in the other Sex They are acknowledg'd by all to be more merciful faithful and charitable then Men so Devout that the Church which cannot err termes them by no other name and so patient that God hath judg'd them alone worthy to carry their Children nine moneths in their bellies no doubt because Men had not Virtue and Resolution enough for that office The Poets never feign'd but one Jupiter that was able to bear an Infant in his Body though it were but for a few moneths In fine there is no Science or Art in which Women have not excell'd witness the two Virgins Desroches and de Gournai the Vicountess of Auchi and Juliana Morel a Sister Jacobine of Avignon who understands fourteen Languages and at Lyons maintain'd Theses in Philosophy at the age of thirteen years so also of old Diotima and Aspacia were so excellent in Philosophy that Socrates was not asham'd to go to their publick Lectures in Astrology Hipatia of Alexandria the Wife of Isidore the Philosopher in Oratory Tullia the Daughter and doubly heiress of Cicero and Cornelia who taught Eloquence to the Gracchi her Sons in Poetry Sappho the inventress of Saphick Verses and the three Corynnae of whom the first overcame Pindar the Prince of Lyrick Poets five times and in Painture Irene and Calypso in the dayes of Varro If there have been Prophets there have also been Prophetesses and Sybils yea they were Virgins of old that render'd the Oracles at Delphos In brief if there have been war-like Men there have been Amazons too who have shew'd that Valour is not solely Masculine And in our dayes there have been found Maidens that have fought very courageously whose Sex was not known till they were stript after they had been slain in battle But these Feminine Virtues are not so much celebrated as those of Men by reason of the Envy which they bear to the Sex having subjected the same to such a pass that they are enforc'd to support all our defects Though indeed Women may say to Men as the Lyon did to a Man who shew'd him the picture of a Man killing a Lyon If Lyons said he were addicted to painting you would see more Men kill'd by Lyons then Lyons by Men. If Women had had the making of Laws and Histories you would see more Virtues exercis'd by Women then by Men. The Third said That although none but Men are at the ventilating of this Controversie yet Women ought not to alledge that it is easie to commend the Athenians in the City of Athens since God himself hath pass'd a Decree upon them in these words The Woman shall be subject to the Man And 't is to no purpose to say that it was otherwise before the first sin and that subjection was impos'd upon the Woman for a punishment seeing the punishment of the Serpent That he should creep upon the Earth doth not presuppose that he had feet before he caus'd Man to sin by the intervention of his Wife but indeed God converted that into a penalty which before was natural unto him The same ought to be said concerning the Woman who was no less subject to the Man before then after his sin Moreover after God had taken the Woman out of Adam's side whence they say it comes that their heads are so hard he did not say that she was good as he had pronounc'd all the rest of his Creatures And to get Adam to marry her there was no other expedient found but to cast him into a sleep no doubt because had he been awake he would have been very much puzzl'd to resolve upon it So that they who considering on one side the usefulness of that Sex for the preservation of the species of Men and on the other the mischiefs whereof it is the cause have not ill determin'd when they term'd Woman a Necessary Evil to which Men are addicted by natural instinct for the general good and to the prejudice of the particular just as Water ascends upwards contrary to its own nature for the eschewing of Vacuity Woman is an imperfect Animall whom Plato doubted whether he should not rank amongst the irrational and whom Aristotle termes a Monster they who treat her most gently stile her a simple Error of Nature which through the deficiency of natural heat could not attain to the making of a Male. Women big with Female Children are more discolour'd have their taste deprav'd and usually lift up their left leg first as it were for an evidence of that sinister conception
In the Old Testament they who were deliver'd of a Female were unclean for sixty dayes but if of a Male but thirty The Male is fully form'd in thirty dayes but the Female onely in forty two The Males have life at the seventh moneth but Females not till the ninth as if Nature hid her fault as long as she could The Females have less vigour in all their actions because less heat which appears in that they are never ambidextrous as Men oftentimes are Now if in some species of Animals the Females have the advantage above Males as Tygresses Lyonesses and She-wolves it is in fierceness and therein we also yield to Women But what more competent Judge amongst Men can they find then he who try'd so many Solomon who inquires Who can find a Wise Woman And who after he had compar'd them to the bottomeless pit concludes that all wickedness is supportable provided it be not the wickedness of a Woman yea that the wickedness of a Man is better then the goodness of a Woman The Fourth said Every thing is esteemed according to its Author Structure and Composition the means it makes use of the manner how it employes the same and its end Now Man and Woman having the same Author namely God and being compos'd almost of the same parts it remains to inquire what means both the one and the other makes use of for attaining their end which is Happiness It is certain that the being either Man or Woman doth not make either of them good or bad handsome or deform'd noble or infamous happy or unhappy There are found of both sorts in either Sex As to begin in Paradise the eleven thousand Virgins alone shew that the Feminine Sex hath as good a share therein as Men. In Thrones Semiramis Thomiris many Queens and Emperesses have manifested that Women as well know how to command as Men. Judith cutting off the Head of Holofernes and the Maid of Orleans in the dayes of our Fore-fathers have shewn that Men alone were not courageous and fit for Martial Atchievements In brief there is no kind of performances in which examples are not to be found both of Men and Women that have acquitted themselves happily therein In Oeconomy or the management of a Family if some Men are the Masters there are found Women too that have the supremacy and that in such sort that the Men dare not complain Wherefore they who seek the cause of the nobleness or abjectness of Man and Woman in the Sex seek a cause where it is not 'T is not the being a Man or a Woman that makes noble or ignoble 't is the being an excellent Man or an excellent Woman For as they are mistaken who impute some Vice or Virtue to a whole Province because to be vicious or virtuous are personal things the same ought to be said concerning Man or Woman who are Citizens of the whole world either of whom taken in general hath nothing in themselves but what is very decorous Good and perfect and consequently very noble as proceeding from an Author who communicated to them what perfection and nobleness was respectively requisite If there be any defect it proceeds from the individual person and ought no more to be attributed to the Sex then to the Species CONFERENCE XXVI I. Whether it be lawful for one to commend himself II. Of Beauty I. Whether it be lawful for a Man to commend himself IF things could speak or if Men spoke alwayes of them as is fitting the Question would be needless but for that neither the one nor the other are to be expected it is reasonably demanded whether ever it be lawful to supply this default our selves Three sorts of persons there are each of a different opinion touching this Subject The first prize and respect themselves so highly that as one of the great Wits of these times said to a certain Author who would have had more praise had he given himself less They catch cold with too much speaking to themselves bare-headed The Second having heard that Glory is a shadow that follows those that flie it affect blame with so palpable design that it is plainly seen that they fall down onely to be lifted up like those brides who would not hide themselves if they knew that they should not certainly be found out The Third observing how odious self-praise is to all the world never attribute any to themselves and cannot so much as endure to hear themselves commended accounting it no other then flattery The first maintain that they who say that a Man must not praise himself establish a Maxime to which none obey Do not great Captains say they succesfully animate their Souldiers by their own commendations Doth not the expert Physitian preserve his own good reputation together with the health of his Patient Do not they who make Panegyricks for others find their own in the same Doth not the Excellent Preacher preach his own Doctrine and Eloquence together with the Gospel Doth not the acute Advocate argue as well for his own reputation as for the carrying of his Clients Cause Then for Arts and Trades we see he is accounted the best Trades-man that ha's the nimblest Tongue in commending his own wares Moreover he that asks an Almes by a sign asks it no less then if he spoke and consequently as many wayes as there are to signifie any thing the same are as so many words and although the one are vocal and the other mute yet they equally signifie Whence it follows that a Man is as little to blame in speaking well as in doing well He that hangs a bush at his door doth no less say I have Wine to sell then if he proclaim'd it A fair Woman who exposes her self to the view of every one and a Painter who hangs forth his pieces to sell to passengers prize and commend themselves more then if they spoke and yet neither is censur'd for so doing In brief as we may blame our selves without speaking by doing some evil action so Men in effect commend themselves by performing virtuous actions The Second who contemn themselves incessantly that they may be the more esteem'd by others find nothing that more removes the mask of their Hypocrisie then the assent of others to what they say and indeed they are no less unacceptable and tedious then the former But the last please much more justifying their Principle by the enumeration of all Professions in which all that excell abhor this vanity which is odious to all the world War requires great deeds and few words Humility the prime Virtue in Divinity cannot consist with boasting A good Physitian cannot hear the relation of his great cures without blushing and 't is the property of a Mountebank to publish his own Atchievements in that kind Plutarch in an express Treatise renders the reasons hereof 1. Because a Man must be impudent that can commend himself instead of being asham'd to hear his own
greater vertues in times past then they have at the present as it is found amongst others in that Antidote made of tops of Rue a Nut and a Fig wherewith Mithridates preserv'd himself from all poysons and which is now out of credit but much more in man then other animals For besides the diminution which befalls him as a mixt body because he draws his nourishment from the substance of plants and animals he hath besides in himself a double ground of this decay of his strength every thing partaking of nature and its food Hence it is that we are much more short-liv'd then our fathers of old who in the flower of the world's age to speak with Plato who makes it an animal liv'd almost a thousand years and since the Deluge by the corruption which its waters overflowing the earth caus'd in the whole Universe they liv'd six hundred years but at present few attain to eighty Nor do we see any Gyants now a days though they were very frequent in old time Men's minds likewise have a great share of this deterioration in the exercise of vertues and arts Besides that there was never so great a multitude of Laws and Ordinances which are certain evidence of the depravation of manners The fourth said Besides that 't is dubious whether the years of our first Fathers were of equal length with ours the cause of their long life may be attributed to a special priviledge of God to the end they might by their long experience invent Arts and Sciences and people the world Moreover 't is above 4000 years since the term of 70 and 80 years became the common standard of humane life Our age is not more corrupted then the first made infamous by Fratricides Sodomites Incests Treasons and such other enormous sins so much the more detestable in that they had no example of them as their posterity hath had since And as for the inferior bodies since their actions are at present altogether the same with what they perform'd in the beginning of the world the Fire for example not burning less nor the Water cooling less then in Adam's time it must be concluded that they are not chang'd but remain always in the same state The Fifth said That as in the Microcosme we may judge of the corruption of the Body by the least alteration of its parts and fore-tell its death by the disorder observ'd in the most noble so we may make the like Judgement in the Maerocosme in which we see no Mixt Bodies but what are corruptible For things are no longer then they act action being the measure of their being And therefore seeing nothing can act perpetually because the virtue of every thing is bounded and finite nothing can be perpetual As Knives and the like instruments are blunted with much cutting so the qualities incessantly acting must of necessity be weakned and at length become impotent But the surest sign of the worlds corruption is the annihilation of corporeal formes the noblest parts of the universe For as for spiritual formes when they are separated from the Body they are no longer consider'd as parts of the world The Sixth confirm'd this opinion by the abundance of new diseases sprang up in these last Ages and unknown to the preceding as the Neapolitane Malady the Scurvy and sundry others which cannot proceed but from the corruption of Humours and Tempers and this from that of the Elements The Seventh said That the world is so far from growing worse that on the contrary it becomes more perfect as 't is proper to things created from a small beginning to increase and at length attain their perfection which the world having attain'd doth not decline because it is not an organiz'd body whose property it is to do so after it hath attain'd its State This is visible in Metals and particularly in Gold which the longer they remain in the Earth the more concoction and perfection they acquire Moreover the Wits of Men are more refin'd then ever For what could be more ignorant then the Age of our first Parents for whom God himself was fain to make Clothes those of their own making being onely fig-leaves In the Ages following you see nothing so gross as what was then accounted the highest degree of subtlety as the Learning of the Rabbins among the Jews and the Druids among the Gauls the best skill'd of whom might come to school to our Batchelors But their gross ignorance in Handy-crafts appears amongst others in our Flowers de Luce the figure whereof stamp'd on their Coin resembles any thing rather then a Flower de Luce. II. Of Jealousie Upon the Second Point it was said That Jealousie is very hard to be defin'd If you rank it under the Genius of Fear how comes it to make Rivals so venturous in attempting and executing If 't is a sort of Anger and Indignation whence do's it make them so pale If you assign this Passion to Man alone how do's it metamorphose them into beasts taking from them all exercise of reason If you admit it in beasts too how do's it render Men so ingenious I think they should speak best who should term it a Rage since the most Tragical Histories are fullest of its actions Yet you shall meet with some that make a laughter of it and if a Mistress changes them they also change their Mistress who when they are marry'd alwayes knock at the door though it be wide open for fear of finding what they do not seek Whereas others are jealous even of the sheets of their own bed Let us therefore rank it amongst the caprichious Passions or rather let us do like the Physitians who having given names to all the Veins and Bones term some which they know not how to call otherwise Innominate and sine pari So this Passion shall be the nameless and peerless Passion The Second said This Passion seem'd to depend on the Climates Northern people being very little subject to it whereas they of the South cannot hear Mass or Sermon unless there be a wall between the Men and the Women And Bodin saith 't was one of the things which Mendoza Gondamor the Spanish Ambassador wonder'd at most in France and England why Men went with Women into Churches Likewise Caesar saith of the English that twelve of them were contented with one Woman and agreed peaceably whereas the Indians and Africans have troops of Wives and yet Puna King of the Indians did not think his secure amongst his Eunuchs till he had disfigur'd them and cut off their Arms. The Third said that Jealousie may be compar'd to the Syrian Cow of whom the Proverb saith that indeed she fill'd the pail with her Milk but presently overturn'd it with a kick It gives Love and it gives Ruine And yet this Passion is so inseparable and so necessarily a companion of Love that it do's the same office to it which the bellows do to the furnace which it kindles For imagine a
that these changes can be real is repugnant to Reason and the order which God hath establish'd in Nature in which being nothing can act beyond its bounds 't is impossible for Devils to have the power to make a transmutation of substances For though they have some power upon natural bodies and even upon Men to try the good and punish the wicked yet the same is so limited that as they cannot create a Hand-worm so much less can they change substances and transform them into others which were to annihilate and create both together Besides 't is repugnant in regard of the Form which cannot inform and actuate any matter but that which is prepar'd and dispos'd for it Wherefore these transformations are either to be attributed to the Phancy alone which being perverted makes some conceit themselves not only beasts but glass earth other absurd things or else they are to be deduc'd from the depravation of manners For as in the Heroical State Men approach'd the Deity so in that of ferity they come near to the nature of beasts differing therein according to each Vice In regard of their voluptuousness the Companions of Vlysses were accounted Swine for his Cruelty one Lycaon a Wolf for their voices and thieveries the Companions of Diomedes transform'd into Birds the Learned taking that metaphorically which the vulgar doth literally II. Of the means to acquire Nobility Upon the Second Point it was said There are as many wayes of acquiring Nobility as there are several kinds of it That which comes by descent and is called Civil is not acquir'd but onely preserv'd and upheld by the resemblance and correspondence of our laudable actions with those of our Fore-fathers It begins in him who is ennobled encreases in the Children is perfected in the Nephews and lyes in the common opinion that the generous beget a generous off-spring That which comes from Riches is acquir'd by industry and good husbandry That which attends Ecclesiastical Dignities comes from Learning Piety and Favour Thus the Cardinals are Princes and the Nephews of Popes are Sovereigns in Italy The Doctoral which extends to Physitians and Lawyers the Body of whom the Emperours call the Seminary of Dignities declaring them Counts that is Counsellors and Assessors of Kings after exercising their charge twenty years comes from study knowledge and experience The Military from Courage and Valour That which is obtain'd by the grace or favour of a Prince whether it be by granting a Fief or Mannor which alone ennobles its possessor or not is acquir'd by merit and the services done to him They who desist from all mechanick and sordid action may become noble by virtue of the Prince's Letters That which comes from the Custome of places is obtain'd by administration of the chief Magistracies in a City to which the Officers are admitted by Election as the Capitouls or Sheriffs at Tholouse and at Poictiers and Maires and Scabins were ennobled by the priviledge of King Charles V. where we must not confound the ancient Chevalry which are the Gentlemen with the newly ennobled who may indeed be call'd Nobles but not Gentlemen The Second said The Sacred History gives the first Nobility to Hunters when it saith that Nimrod who was the first King upon Earth was a mighty Hunter Aristotle gives it to such as excell in any Art or Exercise whom he saith are so many Kings in their profession Many to the Inventors of things profitable to Humane Society and indeed Antiquity plac'd such in the number of the gods Experience causes us to add a fourth sort of persons whose Bodies or Minds or both are endu'd with such gentle and winning perfections that in what ever condition they be even the meanest that they discover a connatural Nobility through it and differ as much from the vulgar as precious stones from others to use Ronsard's comparison who saith that when Deucalion and Pyrrha repair'd mankind they threw precious stones to make the Nobility and common stones to re-people the world with the vulgar The Fifth said That true Nobility cannot be acquir'd but by arms which are the only original of ancient Nobility For since more hazards are to be undergone in war then in time of peace it was necessary to sweeten the toil of arms by annexing Nobility more inseparably to them then to any other exercise to the end that the life of Warriors being usually shorter then that of others by reason of the dangers whereto it is subject they may in recompence live with more honour Otherwise there 's none but would prefer the shadow and ease of Cities before the travels and hardships of the Campaigne whereas the most desirous of honour prefer above any thing that guerdon of warlike vertue which is in the hand of Sovereigns who as Solon saith hold the life honour and estates of men of whom they make some Deniers others Millions according as they dispose the same The Fourth said There 's no true Nobility besides that of extraction this being unanimously receiv'd in all States yea amongst the most barbarous Nations 'T is for this reason desin'd by the Civilians an Illustriousness of Lineage and splendor of Ancestors with succession of Coat-Armour and Images confer'd upon some person and through him to his Family by the Prince Law or Custom in reward of Vertues which are serviceable to the State and humane Society And although such vertues are proper and particular to their Possessor yet as the dishonour and infamy which follow Vices and Crimes reflect upon Descendants so the Nobility which follows those vertuous actions and is nothing else but the honour and reward which accompanies them is diffus'd also to Posterity and like the streams of Springs less considerable in their original is increas'd by time and the more remote it is the more it is esteem'd the highliest priz'd being that which is like Nilus whose rise is unknown Thus the Athenians glory'd that they were Autocthones or sprung from the Earth because their Nobility was so ancient that they affirm'd it impossible to assign the first Author of it for which reason they wore golden Cockle-shells at their hair because these Insects never relinquish the place of earth whence they took birth As the Arcadian Nobles wore Moons in their Hats and the Romans Crescents upon their shooes but for several ends the former intimating thereby that they were a people as old as the Moon and the latter denoting by this figure of the changeable Moon the inconstancy of Woman which sometimes abases the most illustrious and raises the most abject Families The Fifth said That Nobility depends not only on opinion as they seem to conclude who have no other ground of it but it hath its foundation in a solid and real cause namely in the proper merit and peculiar actions of every one So that to speak accurately 't is no more in the power of any one whatever to ennoble an unworthy and undeserving person then to make a
kind is when onely the Spirits are enflam'd and 't is call'd Ephemera because it continues but one day unless the Humours too become of the party as it falls out usually and it admits of three differences according to the three sorts of Spirits Animal Vital and Natural The Humoral Fever is either Simple or Compounded The Simple is either Continual or Intermitting The Continual is caus'd when the putrefaction of the Blood possesses the great Vessels or some noble Part. The Intermitting produc'd by the three other Humours putrefying out of the Veins is either Quotidian which is produc'd by Phlegme or Tertian by Choler or Quartane by Melancholy The Compounded or complex Humoral Fever is caus'd by the mixture of those Humours which then cause a double Quotidian double Tertian and double Quartane yea sometimes but very rarely a Quintane and others of longer interval which may be attributed to all the different from which Fevers arise The Efficient causes is in my opinion the strength of Nature and every one's particular Temper as he who is more robust and upon whom the disease is more violent will have longer Fits the Fight of Nature with the Malady being more stoutly maintain'd by the parties and consequently shorter intervals because that which increases to the one decreases to the other The Cholerick will have longer Fits of a Tertian Fever and shorter of a Quotidiane The Material Cause contributes very much herein being that which supplies Ammunition to this intestine War which is continu'd or discontinu'd according to the proportion and quantity of the Matter 'T is more easie to name the Formal Cause then to understand it But as for the Final 't is certain that Nature makes the intervals of Fevers purposely to rally and recruit her strength as truces and cessations of Armes use to be made when the Country is almost spent or the Souldiers too much harrass'd and out of heart The Second said That the Periods of Fevers have been matter of torture to the best wits who could not without admiration consider how e. g. one sick of a Quartan and appearing to day at the point of Death should nevertheless for two days together perform all his actions perfectly and then upon the fourth many times too at the same hour in more contumacious Fevers become in the like pitiful condition again Now the Cause hereof is commonly attributed to the time which is requir'd for producing the matter of the Fever and consuming it They hold that it is so long in consuming as the Fit lasts the the end whereof is the Crisis like as the ancient water-clocks of the Romans did not signifie nor strike the hour till the vessel was full Some have imputed the cause to the motion of the Humour and believ'd that as the humid mass of the Sea hath its flux reflux and interval so have the Humours of our Bodies when the natural heat which regulated them being disorder'd and its effect suspended by the disease governes the same no longer but abandons them to their own Capricio Of which motion 't is no easier to render a reason then of that of the Sea the Load-stone and all other occult motions Hence many have recurr'd to the Asylum of Last Differences the knowledge whereof is interdicted to Humane Capacity And therefore they have ventur'd to assign no other cause saving that the Interval of these Fevers being their most proper Difference it must not be wonder'd if we understand their nature as little as those of all other things in the world The Third said That the time which is requisite for generating the Humour cannot be the cause of these Intervals since the Fits of a Fever are longer or shorter though the Fever change not its Nature yea it will become double or trebble sometimes and still keep the name of a Quartan As on the contrary when there is so little matter left for it that it is almost quite gone yet it alwayes returnes on the fourth day although the Fit lasts a shorter time Yea it comes to pass oftentimes that he who hath had a Quartan and is cur'd of all other Symptomes of his Ague yet for a long time after feels the chilness and weariness at the same day and hour that his Disease was wont to seize upon him In the mean time while 't is manifest that the Fever being gone the Melancholy Humour is no longer gather'd together in sufficient quantity to produce it and therefore the cause cannot be attributed to the Melancholly Humour since it no longer causeth the fever Whereby we may judge that the quantity of the matter contributes to the lengthening or diminishing of the fit but gives not the fever its name or form Now as for the motion which they attribute to the Humour like that of the Sea and their calling this Interval the form of the Fever 't is a confession of their Ignorance but not a solution of the Question Galen in the second Book of the Differences of Fevers and the last Chapter refers the cause of these regular and periodical motions to the dispositions of the parts of the whole Body which being distemper'd cease not to transmit or receive generate or attract superfluous and excrementitious humours and he holds that so long as the cause of these dispositions lasts so long the circuits continue and consequently the reason why a Tertian which is caus'd by Choler returnes every third day is because the distemper'd parts transmit or receive or generate bilious humours and excrements every other day But the question remains still whence it is that these parts are affected in such manner that they cause such just and regular periods For though it be true that the parts by reason of pain or heat e. g. yellow putrid Choler nevertheless this doth not infer that they attract the same rather the third day then the fourth or every day as they ought to do since the cause being alwayes present viz. the pain or heat which incessantly attracts this humour the effect should alwayes follow and make a Quotidian circuit although indeed 't is but once in three dayes The Fourth said That as Physitians refer the unusual motions of Epileptical and the violent sallies of the Frantick not barely to the phlegmatick or atrabilarious humour but to a certain quality of it so ought we to do touching the periodical motions of Fevers which proceed not simply from the humours corrupted but from a particular condition and virtue of each humour whereby it is that putrifying Phlegme makes its approaches every day Choler every third and Melancholy every fourth day And as these humours so long as they retain their natural constitution have a regular motion which carries one into the Bladder of Gall and the Guts the other into the Spleen and the other into the Stomack so being corrupted each acquires a certain new quality and putrefaction which is the cause of other periodical motions namely those of Fevers The Fifth
said That as health is a Symmetrie and fit proportion of all the humours while they continue in society one with another so a Fever is a discomposure thereof when some one comes to infringe the obedience which it owes to the laws of the Compositum and to usurp a Tyranny over the rest In which case they do as States who apprehend their own ruine by the too great increase of a potent neighbour they unite against it and go to assail it all together Upon this shock the natural heat retires to the Heart which is the centre of the Body as if it call'd its Councel hence proceeds the cold fit of the Fever during which the extreme parts destitute of their ordinary heat fall into trembling shivering and chattering as it comes to pass upon the Earth when the Sun is very remote from it But Nature at length getting the mastery is not contented to return the Blood to the parts who were depriv'd thereof in the same condition that they lent it to her she drives it into them with a new heat acquir'd by the vicinity of the Heart which is the source thereof and augmented by the reciprocation of its motion But as no violent thing is of long continuance this heated Blood causing its sharpest serosities to pass through the skin by sweat becomes asswaged and as water remov'd from off the fire ceases to boyle it no longer extends the Veins nor stimulates the Arteries whether this Crisis perfectly terminates the disease as in Continual Fevers or the Fit onely as in Intermitting which leaving a leven of the Fever how little soever in the humours and an empyreuma or combustion in the parts the best Aliments yea the most laudable humours if any such remain in the Body are as easily turn'd into the matter of the Fever as the best Wine is spoyl'd when it is pour'd upon a corrupted lee in a musty vessel And 't is not so much to be wonder'd that this corruption is made regularly in the time of half a day in Quotidians of one day in Tertians and of two in Quartans as that the Periods of Fevers are sometimes irregular as is seen in Erratical Fevers considering that all generations and corruptions are reciprocal and have their limited time Thus 't is a less wonder that Women are ordinarily deliver'd of Children likely to live in the ninth and seventh moneths then if they were deliver'd so in all the other moneths indifferently which hath place in all other motions of Nature who doth every thing according to number weight and measure II. Of Friendship Upon the Second Point the First said Friendship is a powerfull and streight Union which conjoynes the lover and the loved party together making one whole of these two parts like that bond which in Nature unites the Matter and the Form the Accident and the Substance The cause of it is Goodness which being proportionate to the Body produceth a natural Amity to the Passions an Animal Amity to the Understanding a Rational one to the Laws a Political or Civil to Religion a Divine one This Goodness consisting in a Proportion and Symmetry is not different from Beauty and therefore we apprehend Beauty in good things and goodness and convenience in such as are handsome and gracefull The Second said besides goodness which is the cause of Friendship and towards which our will is as necessarily carry'd as the Intellect is towards Truth and all the Senses towards their proper objects Resemblance and Friendship it self are the causes of Friendship The first is founded upon the Love which we bear to our selves For as we love our selves above any thing else in this world so we love those who resemble us and symbolize with our humours and inclinations Hence it is that one of the most common courses to please is to conform our selves to those by whom we desire to be affected we never contradict their Judgement we have no other Will but theirs we frame our selves to their gestures and actions without excepting those which are imperfect Then Friendship the second means of acquiring Love is no less effectual it being almost impossible not to love them who love us Whence the Ancients feign'd Love to be the most ancient of all the gods intimating that Love hath no other Principle or Origine but Love it self And they who assign'd him a Companion which they styl'd Anteros signifi'd thereby that Friendship cannot last unless it be mutual The Third said That Friendship must be distinguish'd from Love For Love is a Passion of the Concupiscible Appetite arising from the imagination of a sensible good and is found even in brute beasts But friendship is one of the most excellent vertues or rather the fruit of accomplish'd and perfect vertue 't is indeed very rare because it hath place only amongst excellent persons who are very few uniting and making them conspire together in the exercises of vertue But being once establish'd it is very durable inasmuch as its cause and foundation Vertue always remains and may be exercis'd Therefore Seneca pronounces that the friendship which knows an end was never true Some friendships there are indeed the most whose foundation is Profit and Pleasure but they are always imperfect Whence it is that old men and young men are ordinarily accounted incapable of true friendship the former because they scarce regard any thing besides Profit and the latter because their minds are more set upon what is pleasant and agreeable then upon what is honest or vertuous Nor is it ever found amongst wicked persons For 1. a perfect friend must love another as much as himself And although the affection we bear to our selves be not true friendship because this must always have reference to another yet it is the most certain yea the measure of perfect friendship and God hath appointed it as the rule of our love to our Neighbour Now how can he be a perfect friend who doth not love himself How can he agree with another who accords not with himself and how will he do good to another who doth none to himself for a vicious man is his own chiefest enemy whilst he pursues the false and imaginary good in stead of the true vice instead of vertue the shadow for the body and many times he becomes his own murderer by intemperance and other vices He hath always a civil war within himself his Reason is never at peace with his Appetite what one desires the other rejects Consequently he hath never any inward joy but he is greatly displeas'd with being alone and for that reason always seeks the company of those like himself to divert his sad thoughts The Fourth said There is nothing comparable to Friendship which is the salt and seasoning of humane life the presever of societies and the most agreeable and sweetest consolation that persons of vertue and honour can have by help of which a man finds another self to whom he may entrust his most secret
this charge comes to may be taken for profit upon the Pawn and added to the principal but the remainder restor'd to the owner And nothing above this is to be suffer'd CONFERENCE XLIV I. How Minerals grow II. Whether it be best to know a little of every thing or one thing exactly I. How Minerals grow UNder Minerals are comprehended Metals Stones and all sorts of Fossilia or things dig'd out of the earth The causes of their growing or augmentation are here inquir'd All the world agrees that they grow excepting those who hold that God created them at the beginning together with the earth But they who have kept a stone in water for a long time and find the same increas'd in bigness will confute that opinion by this experiment as also the experience of Miners doth who having exhausted a Mine of its Metal find more in it after some years and when they discover Mines as yet imperfect they cover the same again with earth and after some space of time find them fit to be wrought upon and as it were arriv'd to their maturity This is also verifi'd by that Chymical operation call'd vegetable Gold and pieces of Cinnabar or Quick-silver mingled with Sulphur melted and put amongst the filings of Silver being set over a furnace in a well luted Vessel produceth pure Silver though of less profit then curiosity For this visible artifice seems to prove the invisible one of nature according to the opinion of Philosophers who hold that all Metals are made of Quick-silver and Sulphur So that we must not seek other causes of their generation and increasing then a new accession of that matter either gliding along the veins of the earth or reduc'd first into vapour by heat and then condens'd by cold The Second said That he was of Cardan's opinion who assigns a particular vegetative soul to all Minerals as well as to all Plants whereunto they have great resemblance not only in that they have some virtues and faculties alike yea far more excellent which cannot come but from a principle of life since action is the indication of life but also because they grow according to all their dimensions as Plants do have a conformation and configuration which is common to Plants with them attract retain and concoct the nourishment which they receive from the earth by their veins and passages and have also an expulsive faculty which is not in Plants casting forth their dross and exhaling their superfluous vapours They have also roots and barks as Trees have their substance is of parts organical and really dissimilar though in appearance some of them seem to be similar and homogeneous and Lead out of which are extracted Salt or Sugar Quick-silver and Sulphur is no more a similar body then Ebeny Box and Milk out of which such different substances are drawn The Third said That before we can know whether Minerals live we must first understand how life is caus'd in man who is to be as the rule of all living things It consists but in one sole action to wit that of Heat upon Humidity which it rarefies and subtilizes causing the same to ascend by little and little out of the intestines through the Mesentery to the Liver Heart and Brain in each of which it casting off its excrementitious parts it acquires a new perfection the utmost in the Brain where it becomes a very thin spirit capable of receiving any form even that of light as appears by the internal splendor of our sight and that brightness which is sometimes seen outwardly upon some Bodies In Plants are found the like cavities destinated to receive and prepare their nourishment which heat attracts into them and their knots are so many repositories wherein that heat is re-united and takes new strength till being arriv'd at the top of the Plant according to the rectitude of the fibres it circulates the matter so carried up that it spreads into branches leaves and fruit For as humidity is of it self immoveable and incapable of any action so being accompani'd with heat it moves every way and there is no need of admitting an attractive faculty in each part since it is carried thereunto sufficiently of it self Natural heat indeed drives it upwards but all unusual heat makes it break out collaterally as is seen in sweat for no eruption of humidity is caus'd but by the excess of some strange heat not proper or natural Now we may observe these tokens of life in the production of Minerals their vaporous matter being first sublim'd and purifi'd by heat and then incorporated with themselves But because all Natures works are occult and the instrument she uses to wit natural heat is imperceptible 't is no wonder if it be hard to know truly how Minerals hid in the earth grow since we are ignorant how the accretion of Plants expos'd to our view is made we perceive them to have grown but not to grow as the shadow on on the Dyal is observ'd to have gone its round yet appears not to move at all Nevertheless the Arborists would have us except the Plant of Aloes out of this number whose flower and trunk at a certain time shoot forth so high and so speedily that the motion thereof is perceptible to the eye The Fourth said That the generation of some Minerals is effected by heat and of others by cold the former by coction and the latter by concretion or co-agulation which two agents are discover'd by the dissolution of Metals For such as are made by cold are melted by its contrary Heat as Lead Silver and other Metals and those which are made by heat dissolve in water as all Salts provided neither the one nor the other be so compact and close that they admit not the qualities of their contraries for which reason Glass which is concocted by fire is not dissolv'd in water and the Diamond Marble and some other stones congealed by cold are not melted by fire But their accretion is not made by any vital principle but only by a new apposition of matter Moreover they have no sign of inward life as nutrition equal and uniform augmentation in all their parts which should be distinct and organiz'd certain constant terms and limits of magnitude and resemblance of figure and conformation both internal and external between all individuals of the same species For Minerals having no cavities cannot receive aliment inwardly They grow as long as matter is supply'd to them and that inequally Their figure is indeterminate and various according to the casual application of their matter in the veins of the earth and their parts are all alike The barks roots and veins attributed to them have nothing but the shape of those things not the use no more then the paps of men Nor do they bear flowers fruits or seeds nor produce or multiply themselves any other way as Plants do The Fifth said We give appellations or names to things from their external form because
should be wrought out with fear and trembling CONFERENCE XLVI I. Of Vacuity II. Of the extravagance of Women I. Of Vacuum THe Vulgar call that empty which is not fill'd with some visible body But the Philosophers give this name to a place destitute of all corporeity whatsoever yet capable of being fill'd at least if any such can be in nature For it cannot be understood of those imaginary spaces beyond the heavens which Pythagoras said serv'd for their respiration whereof he conceiv'd they stood in need as animals do Democritus and Leucippus admitted a two-fold Vacuum one in the Air serving for local motion the other in all mixt Bodies requisite to the internal growth and also to the lightness of things alledging that according as their atomes are closely or loosely connected and of various figures so bodies are light or heavy But these Opinions being antiquated I adhere to the common one which admits no vacuum at all The Second said Since Nature abhors vacuum there must be such a thing for of two contraries the one supposes the other And indeed 't is impossible for any local motion condensation or rarefaction and inward augmentation to be made without admitting vacuity For as for local motion when a body removes out of a place that into which it enters is either full or empty not full for then it could not receive a new body without penetration of dimensions which nature cannot suffer therefore it must be empty For this reason Melissus affirm'd that all things are immoveable For being unable to comprehend how motion could be made without and unwilling to admit vacuity therefore he deny'd both To say that bodies give way one to another is to increase the difficulty instead of resolving it for the body which gives place to another must displace a third and this a fourth and so to infinity So that to avoid admitting little pores or interstices in the air into which it may be compacted we must affirm that the air of our Antipodes is agitated at every the least motion of a finger here Moreover Vacuum is prov'd by condensation and rarefaction For the former being made when a body is reduc'd into a lesser extent and its parts approach neerer one another without loss of any either these parts penetrate one another or else there was some void space which is possess'd by themselves when they are thrust together seeing if they had been so contiguous as that there were not any empty pores between them they could not have come closer together Likewise rarefaction being caus'd when the parts recede one from another if no other body interpose there must needs be a vacuum between the parts or else they must have been one within another If it be said that proportionably as one thing is condens'd in one place another is as much rarefi'd somewhere else to fill up the vacuum and so on the contrary this is harder to be conceiv'd then a vacuum Lastly accretion or growth which is caus'd by the reception of aliment in the body could not be made if three were not some void passages to receive this aliment And to conclude experience shews us that a pail of water will receive its own measure of ashes or lime which it could not do if there were no vacuity The Third said That every thing affects unity not only because God who is the universal cause of all is one and most simple and every thing ought to be like its cause but for that all things find their good and conservation in unity as they do their ruine in dis-union Wherefore every thing in the world is so united that there is not any empty space between two and contiguity is as necessary in the parts of the world as continuity in those of a living creature For if there were a Vacuum in the world the Heavens could not transmit their influences into the Elements and their compounds for the preservation of which the same are absolutely necessary considering that whatever acts upon a distant thing must do it by some medium uniting the agent and the patient The Fourth said Since Nature offers violence to her self to prevent inanity and all things quit their particular interest for that of the publick undoubtedly there is no such thing as vacuum in Nature For we see that she makes heavy things to ascend light things to descend and breaks the solidest and strongest things without any external violence only to avoid the inconvenience of vacuity If bellows be compress'd and the holes stop'd no humane force can expand them without breaking a bottle of what material soever fill'd with boiling water and stop'd and put into cold immediately flies in pieces You cannot draw Wine out of a vessel unless you give entrance to the air at the bung-hole A vessel being full of heated air and its orifice apply'd to the water sucks the same upwards A Cupping-glass when the heated and subtile air in it becomes condens'd and takes up less room attracts the flesh into it self Syphons and Pumps by which the water is made to ascend higher then its source are founded wholly upon this eschewing of vacuity Our own bodies also afford us an instance for the aliment could not be assimilated in each part without the suction and attraction which is made of it to supply the place of what is consum'd by exercise or heat otherwise the blood and nourishment would tend only downwards by their own weight And what makes the effects of blood-letting and purgation so sensible but this very flight of Vacuum The Fifth said A notable vacuity and of great extent cannot be without miracle but some small interspers'd inanities may be between the particles of the Elements and Compounds like the pores of our bodies for Nature abhors the former and can do nothing without the latter it being impossible for Qualities to be transmitted to any subject through a great vacuum which would hinder the perception of our senses and the fire it self from heating at the least distance There could be no breathing in it Birds could not fly in it in brief no action could be exercis'd in it but those whereof the principle is in the thing it self and which need no medium as local motion which would be more easily made because there would be no resistance The Sixth said Nature doth what she can to hinder a vacuum yet suffers one when she is forc'd to it For if you suck out all the air out of a bottle then stop it exactly and having put it under water with the mouth downwards open it again the water will immediately ascend to fill the vacuity left by the exsuction of the air And if with a Syringe you force air into a vessel strong enough to endure such violence when the pores of the air which were empty before come to be fill'd it will of its own accord drive out the water very impetuously which was put first into it Likewise though the air
the subtilest sense to wit the Sight The Fifth said That the nobleness of the Touch appears principally in that 't is the most infallible of all the senses as the most honourable persons are accounted most worthy of credit Therefore our Lord being to convince S. Thomas at that time incredulous caus'd him to feel his side and manifest things are call'd palpable because the Touch is the last sense that is deceiv'd Whence they who dream do not frequently find their errour till putting forth their hands to the phantasin they begin to be convinc'd that it is nothing but air The Sixth said That as 't is a common vice to all the Senses to be deceiv'd so that of Touch is not more exempt from it then the rest and the less because it judges of the quality of its objects only by comparison according to the diversity of which one and the same thing diversly affects it and is sometimes apprehended one way sometimes another A man that comes out of a hot Bath shivers in the same air which he accounted warm before he enter'd into the water and when he that learns to dance puts off his leaden soles he thinks his feet lighter then he did before he put them on The Seventh said The Touch is an external sense terrestrial and gross it perceives hot and cold dry and moist heavy and light hard and soft smooth and rough or unequal acide viscous or slippery thick and thin tough and friable or brittle and other such tactile and earthy qualities For as there are five simple Bodies in Nature namely the Heaven and the Elements so each of the five external Senses corresponds to one of them the Sight to Heaven in regard of its transparence and lucidity the other four to the Elements of which the Earth symbolizeth with the Touch because every thing that is felt must have some solidity and consistence which proceeds from the Earth otherwise it could not make it self felt by it self but only by some predominant quality as we feel not the air when it touches us unless it be extreamly cold or hot The Organ of Feeling is inward skin which incompasses the whole body of a creature by reason of its so perfect and equal temperature that it is neither hot nor cold dry moist but equally partakes of all these qualities a requisite condition in the Organs of the senses which must be unprovided of all the qualities whereof they are to judge So the Crystalline humour is without colour the tongue without sapour the nostrils without scent the ears without any sound And the skin is neither hard like the bones nor soft like the flesh but of a temper between both being therefore call'd a Nervous flesh and a fleshy Nerve which skin never so little touch'd feels perfectly which would not come to pass if it were not the Organ of the Touch. 'T is therefore woven of infinite nerves terminated in it and bringing the animal spirits to it which are the efficient causes of the Touch as well as of all the other Senses For what the Philosopher saith That a sensible object apply'd upon the Organ is not perceiv'd must be understood only of the three Senses which are for the convenience of an animal to wit the Sight Hearing and Smelling not of the other two which are for its absolute necessity upon which consideration Nature hath appointed them to judge more neerly exercising these two Senses by a medium internal and inseparable from the Organ II. Of Fortune Upon the second Point it was said Fortune is a cause by accident in things which are done for some end by an Agent that makes use of Reason So 't is fortune when one walking for his health or divertisement finds a Purse but chance hazard or adventure is in things which act for some end without election as brutes mad people and children who are not fortunate or unfortunate unless in hope The difficulty of understanding the nature of Fortune ariseth from the infinite abundance of things which may be causes of things which befall men And as 't is proper to man to admire what he understands not upon the observation of the many strange and unforeseen accidents in the world some say that they come to pass by a fatal destiny necessarily guiding every cause to its effect others that they fall out by chance to which the ancient Philosophers ascrib'd so much that Empedocles accounted the situation of the Elements fortuitous Democritus and Leucippus thought the production of all things was effected by the casual concourse of their atomes flying in the vacuum insomuch that out of a blind superstition they erected Temples and Altars to Fortune For indeed there is nothing divine in Fortune since there is not any cause by it self but may be a cause by accident and consequently Fortune Nor is it the Divine Providence since that which is foreseen cannot be call'd fortuitous But we give the appellation of Fortune to any cause which missing of its proper effect produceth another which it intended not The Second said 'T was the ignorance of men that invented Fortune which hath no other existence but in their imagination For every thing that is hath a certain cause determined to its effect But Fortune and Chance are uncertain and indeterminate therefore not causes And although the proximate cause of every thing be unknown to us yet 't is not the less certain for all that in respect of God who ignores nothing Therefore if there be a fortune in respect of us 't is an effect of our ignorance The Third said We must establish in Nature either Destiny or Fortune The former seems to fasten man to Ixion's wheel which permits him not to do any thing of himself and takes from him the commendation of good and blame of evil rendring him by this means guiltless of whatever he do's and laying all upon universal causes whatever distinction may be made of God's will in general and particular it not being conceivable that two contrary wills can at the same time proceed from the same source The second is more correspondent with the daily events which produce effects whereof no necessary cause can be found Indeed if effects are to be divided according to their causes 't is certain that some are necessary and some contingent whereof the latter being fortuitous cannot be referr'd to any thing but to Fortune Yea of the things which come to pass in the world some always arrive in the same manner as day and night when the Sun rises and sets others fall out ordinarily but not always as that a child is born with five fingers on a hand there being some that have six and others on the contrary arrive very rarely as Monsters But if this variety of causes and effects hath place in natural things 't is found much oftner in humane actions whose constancy is unconstancy it self there being not any whose effect is certain For what man can promise himself
a simple alteration which requireth not the time necessary to local motion whereby Hearing is perform'd and by this means distinguish'd from vision in which at the same time the medium and the Organ are both alter'd whereas in Hearing the Organ is not alter'd till after the medium Hence it is that the wind helps greatly to the carrying of sounds which would not be if they were only intentional species for visible things are seen as well in a contrary wind as in a calm air and that sounds seem weaker a far off then neer hand The Sixth said Among the objects of the Senses sounds and odours have alone had the honour to be dedicated to the Deity Melodie and Incense having always been employ'd in Divine Service either because the humane soul is most delighted therewith or for that either of them being somewise spiritual and corporeal God requires that we offer him both the body and the spirit whereas Daemons abhor nothing more then Harmony and Perfumes as ill suting to their irregular and infected nature And sounds have so great affinity with the soul that according to their cadence and their tones they excite compassion cruelty joy sadness courage fear lasciviousness and chastity whence it was said that Aegysthus could never debauch Clytemnestra till he had kill'd her Musitian Because all our actions and inclinations depending upon our spirits they are modefi'd and made like to the sounds which they receive by the ear So that if the sounds be tremulous grave sharp quick or flow the spirits become so too and consequently the Muscles which are instruments of voluntary motion having no action but by means of the spirits they impress upon them and make them follow such cadence as they like Hence it is that hearing others sing we fall a singing too without thinking of it with those that whisper we whisper too with those that speak loud we speak so also that the air of the Musitian stirs our members to conform to it and that our spirits are displeas'd with bad cadences as if the outward air had an absolute dominion over our spirits II. Of Harmony Upon the second Point it was said That Harmony is taken for any proportion and agreement but chiefly for that of sounds in which it is more perceptible and that even by the ignorant It s invention is ascrib'd to Tubal the first Smith upon his observation of the various sounds that the strokes of his Hammer made upon his Anvil which Pythagoras also made use of to find out the proportion of his musical numbers Of which having elsewhere spoken I shall only add here that Harmony presupposes many sounds for one alone makes but a Monotone and two an unpleasing reciprocation but six notes are requisite to perfect Musick industriously compriz'd in the Hymn VT queant LAxis REsonare fibris MIra gestorum c. This harmony is either vocal or instrumental the former whereof having graces and variations inimitable by instruments far surpasses the latter but their mixture is most agreeable The Second said Nature seems to have made a show of her goodliest effects to our Senses and conceal'd their causes from our knowledge Musical harmony aims at the instruction of men that of man's body is the admirable artifice of the Formative faculty which Galen calls divine but the harmony of the world puts our curiosity most to a non-plus 'T is the cause why water notwithstanding its fluidity gathers it self into a heap to leave dry land for the habitation of animals and that the earth which should settle about its centre by its equal gravity yet rises up in mountains The air is alter'd by all sort of qualities that it may give a good one to the earth The fire descends from its sphere to be captivated in Furnaces for our use and is imprison'd in cavities of the earth to promote the generation of Metals The Heavens move for the benefit of inferiour bodies in a place where they might enjoy eternal rest 'T is through this harmony that the water becomes thick at the bottom and contracts alliance with the earth while its surface resolves into vapours the rudiments of air whose highest region likewise approaches the nature of fire and this has somewhat of Aethereal and the constitution of the Heavens on which it borders and conjoyns with this inferiour world The cause of this chain and connexion is an universal vertue comprehended in the extent of each being besides the proper motive vertue destinated to content its appetite The necessity of this vertue is a certain evidence of its existence for since every thing conspires for the general good of the world and withstands the division of its parts Nature must have allotted them a power which may guide them to that end now this power is not extrinsecal since it resides in the subject it self Nor is it the motive vertue for this and that have two different objects and ends namely the publick and the particular good which are not always contain'd one in the other Besides 't would be a manifest contradiction to say that by one and the same vertue things expose themselves to the loss of their proper qualities for the publick good and keep them when only their particular is concern'd Wherefore there is one general law which having authority to force all things to contract amities not sorting to their inclination is above that vertue which leads things directly to their own good which is the cause of the excellent harmony observ'd in the whole world The Third said Indeed Harmony is every where between the Creator and his Creatures both spiritual and corporeal in the Hierarchies of bless'd Spirits one with another in the assistance of the motive Intelligences with their orbs between the great and the little world in the latter of which the Scripture sets forth to us a perpetual musick of the blessed in the the Empireal Heaven Plato a harmony proceeding from the motion of the Celestial bodies Daily experience makes us hear in the air a consort of winds the Sea beats a measure by its ebbing and flowing the Birds of the air perform the Cantus the Beasts the Base the Fishes the Tacet Man the Tenor who again in the structure of his body and soul is a perfect harmony In the body the temperature of the humours is so harmonical that their disproportion drives away the soul which Galen upon this account calls harmony In the soul so long as Reason holds the sovereignty and constrains the murmuring Appetite to hold its base there results from it a harmony delectable to God and Men. On the contrary if you would apprehend its discord do but imagine the disorderly uproar excited by choler and the other passions get the mastery over Reason Yea mans whole life is either a perpetual harmony or discord In Religion when one Head is acknowledg'd and every one submits thereunto for Conscience sake and keeps his station how beautiful are those Tabernacles of
of action as neglect of a salutation makes men go to the field Yea all the professions of the world borrow their praise or their blame from Phancy And who is there amongst us but would account it a grievance and make great complaints if that were impos'd upon him by command which his phancy makes him extreamly approve The studious person rises in the night to study the amorous spends it in giving serenades In brief the Proverb that saith None are happy or unhappy but they who think themselves so abundantly evidences the power of Imagination The Fourth said All Animals that have outward senses have also Imagination which is a faculty of the sensitive soul enabling them to discriminate things agreeable from the contrary Therefore those Philosophers who deny'd this power to Worms Flyes and other insects which they affirm'd to be carried towards their good by chance and not by any knowledge of it besides their derogating from divine providence were ignorant that the smallest animals cease not to have the same faculties as others at least confused as their Organs are which contain the more marvels in that they serve to more several uses Moreover Experience shews us that they well distinguish what is fit for them from what is not yea they have their passions too for choler leads the Bee to pursue the enemy that hath pillag'd its hive their providence or fore-cast since both that and the Pismire lay in their provisions and observe a kind of policy among them the former acknowledging a King which they could not do without the help of Imagination although the same be not so strong in them as in perfect animals among whom even such as have no eyes or want the use of them as the Mole are much inferior to others in Imagination which is chiefly employ'd about the Images whence it takes its name whereof the sight supplies a greater quantity then all the other Senses So that every animal being naturally lead to its own good needs an Imagination to conceive it such but all have not Memory which being given only to enable animals to find their abode again which they are oblig'd to quit for some time in quest of food those who change not their residence as Oysters or which carry it with them as Snails and Tortoises have no need of it The Fifth said That the Imagination is a cognition different from that of sense for it knows that which is not but the Sense doth not from Science and Intelligence because these are always true but that is sometimes true sometimes false Nevertheless 't is not opinion because opinion produces a belief in us which presupposes perswasion and this is an effect of Reason whereof brutes are not possest although all of them have more or less some Imagination It s object is of so great latitude that it goes beyond that of entity since that which is not as well as that which is the false as well as the true are under its jurisdiction for it composes divides and runs over all nature and what is out of nature herein almost like the Intellect which owes all its highest notions to it since it can know nothing without the phantasmes of the Imagination which on the contrary depends not any ways upon the Understanding in its operations The Sixth said The Imagination although very active and carri'd in a moment from the lowest stage of the world to its highest stories and to those spaces which it phansies above the heavens yet cannot comprehend where it self is lodg'd But the quality of the Brain most proper for it is heat For besides its great activity whereby it is necessarily alli'd to fire the phanciful persons are most subject to burning Fevers the cholerick excel in this faculty of which on the contrary the phlegmatick are worst provided Whence perhaps Poets who owe their best Verses to the Phancy heighten the heat of their Brain by drinking the best liquors Moreover 't is the strongest of all the Souls Faculties and involves every thing here below It disorders and quiets Nations making them undertake wars and desire peace it awakens and stills our passions and as if nature were not powerful enough to produce all things necessary to the perfection of the world it daily frames new ideas and makes other worlds to its curiosity 'T is this that blinded him of whom Pliny speaks who having dream'd in the night that he had lost his sight found himself blind when he wak'd 't is this that gave a voice to Croesus's son which nature had deny'd him which chang'd L. Cossutius from a woman into a man which made horns grow out of the forehead of Cippus after his dreaming of the Oxen whom he had seen fighting all the day before In brief 't is this that made Gallus Vibius become foolish by having mus'd too much upon the causes of folly But it acts not only within both upon the body and the soul it diffuses its power beyond its own mansion For to it is attributed that wonder of the Tortoises and Estriches which hatch their egges by the sight as also that of Hens which breed Chickens according to the colours laid neer their Nests and sometimes of the shape of a Kite if they have been frighted by that bird whilst they were hatching 'T is also to the power of Imagination that what my Lord Bacon affirms is to be referr'd namely That it is dangerous to be beheld by our enviers in extream joy as 't is reported that certain Scythian women murder'd only with a single aspect and possibly to this cause better then to any other the bleeding of a murder'd body in the murderer's presence may be imputed as also that the most vigorous have been found cold and impotent and other effects the cause whereof may be better referr'd to this Imagination and the connexion and coherence of this cause with those effects demonstrated II. Which is most powerful Hope or Fear Upon the second Point it was said That fear being of two sorts one filial mix'd with respect proper to the ingenuous the other servile arising only from the consideration of punishment it appears hence that fear is more effectual then hope which is not often found but in good persons whereas fear is found both in the wicked and the good The Laws seem also to decide this question there being none that encourages vertue to hope for any thing but all infuse an abhorrence of crimes by the fear of punishments Moreover both the Indies would not suffice the least Commonwealth if profitable rewards were to be given to every good action perform'd in it and honorable recompences being valu'd only for their rarity would be no longer so if they came to be common Therefore there is but one Treasurer of the Exchequer in office but Judges Counsellors Archers and Serjeants innumerable Moreover there is always more to be fear'd then hop'd For he who hath an estate and honour may more easily lose
same with perfect freedom CONFERENCE LXVIII I. Of the Magnetical Cure of Diseases II. Of Anger I. Of the Magnetical cure of Diseases 'T Is requisite to agree upon the Facts before inquiry into Right Now many Authors report that wounds have been cur'd by the sole application of a certain Unguent which for this reason they call Armarium to the instrument or offensive weapon that made it And Goclenius a German Physitian affirms that he saw a Swedish Lady cure one of her servants so that had been hurt by a blow with a knife by his companion and that this cure is very common having been practis'd in presence of the Emperour Maximilian Yea that 't is ordinary for the Peasants of his Country to cure hurts in their feet by sticking the nails or thorns which made them in Lard or Bacon Many Farriers cure prick'd horses by digging up as much ground as their foot cover'd Behold the ordinary composition of the aforesaid Oyntment Take an ounce of the unctuous matter that sticks on the inside of the Scull of one hang'd and left in the air let it be gather'd when the Moon encreases and is in the Sign either of Pisces Taurus or Libra and as neer as may be to Venus of Mummie and man's blood yet warm of each as much of man's fat two ounces of Lin-seed-oyl Turpentine and Bole Armenick of each two drams mingle altogether in a Morter and keep the mixture in a long-neck'd glass well stop'd It must be made while the Sun is in the Sign Livra and the Weapon must be anointed with it beginning from that part which did the mischief from the point to the hilt if it be a thrust and from the edge if it be a cut or blow Every morning the Patient must wash his hurt with his own Urine or else with warm water wiping away the pus which would hinder unition The weapon must be swath'd as the wound uses to be and kept in a temperate place For otherwise they say the Patient will feel pain If you would hasten the cure the weapon must be dress'd often and if you doubt of the part which did the mischief it must be dip'd all over in unguent If the hurt be small 't will be enough to dress the weapon every other day washing the hurt every morning and evening But this is not to be practis'd in wounds of the Arteries Heart Liver and Brain because it would be to no purpose Now by the nature of the ingredients and their conformity with us their effect seems to be natural and grounded upon the sympathy that there is between the blood issu'd from the wound and remaining on the weapon and that which is left in the wounded body so that the one communicates to the other what good or evil it receives although it be separated from the whole As they affirm that those whose leg or arm is cut off endure great pains when those parts that were lop'd off corrupt in the earth Which happens not if they be carefully embalm'd So the Bee the Viper and the Scorpion heal the hurts made by themselves Of which no other reason is alledg'd but this correspondence and similitude of the parts to their whole the bond of which is very strong although to us invisible The Second said There 's no need of recurring to these superstitious remedies since Nature of her own accord heals wounds provided they be not in the noble parts and be kept clean from the impurities generated in them through their weakness which hinder unition which is an effect of the natural Balsam of the blood and therefore not to be attributed to those Chimerical inventions which have no affinity with the cure whereunto they are intitl'd For every natural agent is determin'd to a certain sphere of activity beyond which it cannot act so the fire burns what it touches heats what approaches it but acts not at any remote distance whatever Moreover time and place would in vain be accounted inseparable accidents from natural motions if this device held good considering that contact is requisite to every natural action which is either Mathematical when surfaces and extremities are together or Physical when the agents touch the Patients by some vertue that proceeds from them Neither of which can be unless the body which heals touches that which is heal'd For all Medicinal effects being to be referr'd to Elementary qualities there is none of them more active then heat which being circumscrib'd within its bounds even in the aliment of fire can be no less elsewhere The Third said That the doctrine of the common Philosophy which teacheth that natural agents always touch one the other is erroneous or else ill explain'd and dependent upon other false principles which attribute all actions to elementary qualities which are taken for univocal causes whereas themselves are but equivocal effects of other supream causes the first of which is Heaven For when God created the world immediately with his own hands he was pleas'd to commit the conduct of natural causes to the Heavens that he might not be oblig'd to make every day new miracles as were those of the Creation For this end he fill'd them with spirits sufficient to inform all sorts of matters whose mixture requir'd some new form and change This made the Philosopher say that the Sun and Man beget Man and Hermes in his Smaragdine Table that the things which are below are as those which are on high And the Astrologers hold that there is nothing here below but hath some proper and peculiar Star some of which appear but far more appear not in the Heavens in regard of their disproportion to our sight or their neer conjunction as in the milky way But if the respective correspondencies of all the Celestial Bodies be not so clearly evident in other sublunary bodies as that of the Pole-star is with the Load-stone of dew with the Sun of this and the Moon with the Heliotrope and Selenotrope yet are they no less true 'T is credible therefore that the Weapon-salve hath such sympathy with the Constellation which is to make the cure of the wound that by its magnetick vertue it attracts its influence from Heaven and reunites it as a Burning-glass doth the Sun-beams at as great distance by which means it is deriv'd to the instrument that made the wound communicating its healing vertue to the same as the Sun likewise communicates his heat to the earth which heats us afterwards and thus this instrument being indu'd with a sanative vertue communicates the same to the wound made by it the cure of which besides the form and connexion of the instrumental cause with the effect is further'd by Nature which always tends to preserve it self and the imagination of the wounded person which induces Hippocrates to require that the Patient have hope and confidence in his Physitian for this as its contrary ruines many by dejecting their strength doth miracles towards a recovery
blemish Cato's reputation by making him appear 46 times in full Senate to justifie himself from the accusations Envy had charg'd upon him made him more famous And the poyson which it made Socrates drink kill'd his body indeed but render'd his memory immortal The truth is if the Greek Proverb hold good which calls a life without envy unhappy Envy seems in some manner necessary to beatitude it self Whence Themistocles told one who would needs flatter him with commendations of his brave actions that he had yet done nothing remarkable since he had no enviers The Fourth said 'T is such an irregular passion that it seems to aim at subverting the establish'd order of nature and making other laws after its own phancy yea so monstrous that 't is not a bare grief for another's good or a hatred of choler or such other passion but a monster compos'd of all vicious passions and consequently the most mischievous and odious of all CONFERENCE LXXIV I. Whence comes trembling in men II. Of Navigation and Longitudes I. Whence comes trembling in men THe correspondence of the great to the little world requir'd that after the tremblings of the earth those should be spoken which happen to men some of which seize but one part of the body as the head lips hands or legs some the whole body with such violence sometimes that Cardan relates of a woman taken with such a trembling that three strong persons could not hold her 'T is a symptom of motion hurt in which the part is otherwise mov'd then it ought being sometimes lifted up and sometimes cast down For in trembling there are two contrary motions One proceeds from the motive faculty endeavouring to lift up the member which is done by retraction of the muscles towards their original which by shortning themselves draw their tail to the head and at the same time what is annex'd thereunto This motive power serves also to retain the elevated member in the posture wherein we would have it continue the abbreviation of the Muscles not suffering it to return to its first situation The other motion is contrary to the will and to that of the motive power the member being depress'd by its own gravity From which contrariety and perpetual war of these two motions arises trembling one of them carrying the part as the will guides it and the other resisting thereunto which is done more speedily then the pulse and with such short intervals that the senses cannot distinguish any middle and makes us doubt whether there be two motions or but one as a ball sometimes returns so suddenly towards him that struck it that the point of its reflexion is not perceiv'd The causes are very different as amongst others the debility of the part and of the animal faculty as in decrepit old men impotent persons and such as are recovering out of long and dangerous diseases or who have fasted long the weakness of the Nerve the instrument of the animal spirits its obstruction contraction or relaxation the coarctation of the Arteries which send the vital spirits to the Brain there to be made animal spirits and proper for motion as in fear which puts the whole body into an involuntary trembling An Ague also do's the same the natural heat which resides in the arterial being carri'd to the relief of the labouring heart and so the outward parts particularly the nerves whose nature is cold and dry becoming refrigerated and less capable of exercising voluntary motion The Second said That the actions of the motive faculty as of all others may be hurt three ways being either abolish'd diminish'd or deprav'd They are abolish'd in a Palsie which is a total privation of voluntary motion They are diminish'd in Lassitude caus'd either by sharp humors within or by tension of the muscles and tendons or by dissipation of the spirits They are deprav'd in trembling convulsion horror and rigor or shivering Convulsion is a contraction of the muscles towards their original caus'd either by repletion or inanition Rigor shaking and concussion of all the muscles of the body accompani'd with coldness and pain is caus'd according to Galen by the reciprocal motion of natural heat and its encounter with cold in the parts which it endeavours to expell or according to some others by any sharp mordicant and troublesome matter which incommoding the muscles and sensitive parts the expulsive faculty attempts to reject by this commotion Horror differs not from Rigor but in degrees this being in the muscles and that only in the skin produc'd by some matter less sharp and in less quantity But trembling being a depravation and perversion of motion cannot be known but by comparison with that which is regular Now that voluntary motion may be rightly perform'd the brain must be of a due temper for supplying animal spirits and the nerves and parts rightly dispos'd Hence the cause of tremblings is either the distemper of the brain or the defect of animal spirits or the defect of animal spirits or the bad disposition of the nerves and parts A fitting temper being the first condition requisite to action every intemperature of the brain but especially the cold is the cause it cannot elaborate spirits enough to move all the parts But this defect of spirits comes not always from such bad temper but also from want of vital spirits which are sent from the heart to the brain by the arteries to serve for matter to the animal spirits These vital spirits are deficient either when they are not generated in the ventricles of the heart through the fault either of matter or of the generative faculty or are carri'd elsewhere then to the brain by reason of their concentration or effusion As in all violent passions these spirits are either concentred in the heart as in fear and grief or diffus'd from the centre to the circumference as in joy and not sent to the brain and in these cases the motive faculty remains weakned and uncapable of well exercising its motions Lastly the nerves being ill dispos'd by some distemper caus'd either by external cold or other internal causes or else being shrunk or stop'd by some gross humors not totally for then there would be no motion at all they cause tremblings which are imperfect motions like those of Porters who endeavouring to move a greater burthen then they are able to carry the weight which draws downwards and the weakness of their faculty which supports it causes in them a motion like to those that tremble The Third said That to these causes Mercury Hellebore Henbane Wine and Women must be added For they who deal with Quick-silver who have super-purgations use stupefactives and things extreamly cold and Venery in excess and Drunkards have all these tremblings according to the diversity of which causes the remedies are also different Gold is an Antidote against Mercury which will adhere to it Repletion against the second Heat Continence and Sobriety against the rest Galen saith that blood
to weep and a time to laugh as the Wiseman testifies so that to do either continually is equally vicious Yet laughter being most sutable to man who is defin'd by the faculty he hath to laugh and not by that of weeping which is common to Harts and Crocodiles who shed true tears and other beasts weep after their manner but none laughs I conceive that the laughter of Democritus was lesse blameable then the weeping of Heraclitus whose tears render'd him odious and iusupportable to all the world which on the contrary is greatly pleas'd with the company of laughers and easily side with them Moreover their Jovial and sanguine humour is always to be preferr'd before the Saturnine and melancholy humour of weepers who are their own greatest enemies exhausting their moisture and by concentration of the spirits hindring the free functions of reason Whereas laughter which is a sign of joy and contentment dilates the spirits and causes all the actions of life to be perform'd better And the laughter of Democritus exciting the like motion of joy in the spectators their joy dilated their spirits and render'd them more docible and capable to receive his counsels The Third said That as a Physitian were no lesse impertinent in laughing at his Patient then imprudent in weeping for the malady which he sees him endure So Democritus and Heraclitus were as ridiculous the one as the other in laughing at or lamenting the misery of men Moreover it seems to be a sign of repentance that he put out his own eyes and not to Philosophize the better otherwise he should have done as one that cut off his own legs that he might leap the better since the eyes are the windows of the soul whereby it admits almost all its informations Heraclitus therefore was more excusable because tears proceed from charity and compassion but laughter is an effect of contempt and procures us as much hatred as the other do's affection Besides Democritus's laughter could neither make others better nor himself for what profit can be made by the ironies and gibes of a mocker On the contrary tears are so perswasive that Augustus as subtle as he was suffer'd himself to be deceiv'd by those of Cleopatra and believ'd her willing to live when she had resolv'd to dye The Fourth said That both of them had reason considering the vanity of the things of the world which are equally ridiculous and deplorable For though laughter and weeping seem contraries yet they may proceed from the same cause Some Nations have wept at the birth of their children whereas we make exultations Many have laugh'd at Alexander who wept because he had no more worlds to conquer Xerxes wept when he beheld his goodly Army of which not one person was to be left after a hundred years whilst a Philosopher of his train laugh'd at it And in both passions there is a retraction of the nerves whence the features of the countenance of one that laughs are like those of him that weeps Moreover the three subjects which may oblige men to laughter namely the crosses of furtune and what they call Virtue and Science afford equal matter of laughing and weeping When fortune casts down such as she had advanc'd to the top of her wheel are not they as worthy of commiseration as of derision for having trusted to her inconstancy When our Gentry cut one another's throats for an ambiguous word lest they should seem cowards are they not as deplorable as ridiculous in taking the shadow of virtue for it self And as for Science should these two Philosophers come from the dead and behold our youth spend ten years in learning to speak and all our Philosophy reduc'd to a bundle of obscure distinctions would not they dye once more with equal reason the one with weeping and the other with laughing CONFERENCE XCI I. Whether heat or cold be more tolerable II. Who are most happy in this World Wise Men or Fools I. Whether heat or cold be more tolerable COmparison moves us more then any other thing And though no sense be less fallacious then the Touch yet 't is guided by comparison as well as the rest Thus Caves seem cold in the Summer because we come out of the hot air and hot in Winter because the same air which we forsake is cold the Cave remaining always in the same temper without recurring to those Antiperistases which have no foundation in the thing the organs of the Touch being the sole competent judges of the several degrees of tangible qualities the first of which are heat and cold provided those Organs be neither too obtuse as in the Paralytical nor too exquisite as when the nerve lyes naked 'T is requisite also that the man who judges be in health for he that has an Ague thinks nothing too cold in his hot fit and nothing too hot or so much as temperate during the cold fit so the phlegmatick and melancholy bear heat better then cold the bilious and sanguine the latter better then the former as correcting the excess of their own temper Now at first sight heat seems more supportable because more congruous to life which consists in heat by which Galen defines the soul as death in its contrary cold Moreover nature hath made the hot Climates more large and capacious then the cold which are two very streight ones although she hath supply'd those Regions with the remedy of Furs all the rest of the world is either hot or temperate and always more hot then cold Nevertheless I conclude for cold because heat joyn'd to our heat renders it excessive whereas cold being encounter'd by it there results a temperate third Besides the opposition of cold redoubles the natural heat whence we have greater appetite in Winter then in Summer sleep longer and perform all natural functions better and are more cheerful in mind whereas in Summer our bodies and minds are languid and less capable of labour and 't is more dangerous in reference to health to cool our selves in Summer then to heat our selves in in Winter the first occasioning the latter preventing most diseases The Second said That cold being an enemy to nature it excess must be more hurtful and consequently more insupportable then that of heat particularly that of the Sun For this grand Luminary the soul of the Universe and whose heat is the cause of all generations must also be that of their preservation not of their destruction Whence the excess of his heat is much more tolerable then that of cold Moreover hot Countries are more fertile and the Scripture teaches us that the first Colonies came from the South Yea some Doctors place the Terrestrial Paradise under the Aequinoctial whence it follows that hot Regions having been first inhabited have also been most habitable even the Torrid Zone thought unhabitable by all antiquity experience hath found very populous whereas the cold are but very little habitable and not at all beyond the 78 degree The
a Gorgon's head a Crane a Dragon a Serpent a fish call'd Scarus or the Gilt-head a Mulberry-tree a Hiacynth Royalty by the reins of a bridle an Elephant and a Dog Wisdom by the breast or the wand of Pallas Concord by a Crow a Caduceus or Mercurius's rod a Peacock a Bee and a Lute Fear by waves a Dove a Hart a Hare and a Wolf All which figures signifi'd other things besides yea oftentimes contraries as the Ass is the Hieroglyphick of wisdom with the Cabalists and with us of stupidity and the same wisdom was denoted among the Egyptians by a sieve which with us is the emblem of a loose-tongu'd person that can retain nothing In fine this Hieroglyphical invention is good for nothing but to make the ignorant admire what they must reverence without knowing it For that which secures all professions from contempt is the use of terms not understood by the vulgar CONFERENCE XCVII I. Of Weights and the causes of Gravity II. Of Coat-Armour I. Of Weights and the causes of Gravity THe World is Man's Palace whereof God is the Architect sustaining the same with the three fingers of his Power Goodness and Wisdom And the Scripture saith He hath hung the Earth in the midst of the Air and ordained all things in number weight and Measure which are the three pillars of this stately Edifice Number is the cause of Beauty Measure of Goodness and Weight of Order which is not found but in the place towards which bodies are carry'd by their Gravity A quality depending upon the four first which by their rarefaction or condensation of things cause more or less ponderosity For light signifies nothing but less heavy it being certain that as the Earth gravitates in the Water and this in the Air so would the Air in the sphere of Fire Fire in the Heaven of the Moon this in the mixt and so forwards till you come to nothing which hath no weight because it hath no corporeity The Second said That gravity and the descent of natural bodies to the centre cannot proceed from the predominance of terrestrial parts in mixts since Gold the heaviest of metals and Mercury which is next it have more humidity then siccity that is to say more Water then Earth in comparison of other metallick bodies God being the most ductile and Mercury the most fluid So also Salt which is heavier then wood or stone is nothing but water cogeal'd and dissolving again in a moist place Wherefore Gravity seems rather to proceed from these three things namely place comparison and figure Place is so considerable herein that bodies gravitate not in their proper places but onely when they are remov'd from the same and more or less proportionally to their distance Comparison makes us judge a body light because 't is less heavy then an other On the contrary Figure makes heavy bodies light causing Leaf-gold to swim which in the same quantity reduc'd into a Globe would sink and an expanded body weighs less in a balance then when it is in a less volumn Which is also observ'd of the thinner parts of the Air which being of a more moveable figure are seen to play therein when the Sun shines clear The Third said That the cause why a broader figure swims or is upheld in the Air more easily then if it were in a Globe or other closer figure is not for that figure makes a thing lighter but from the resistance of the medium which hath more hold in one then in the other Nor do's gravity proceed from the inclination of a thing to its Centre since the Centre is but a Point wherein nothing can lodge And if the Centre of the world were the Centre of heavy things the stars which are the denser and solider parts of their orbs and consequently have more gravity which necessarily follows the density of corporeal matter especially the Moon which is demonstrated to be solid and massie because it reflects the light of the Sun should not remain suspended above the Air which is lighter but descend to this Centre of the Universe For to believe with some that the Moon is kept up like a stone in a sling by the rapid motion of the First Mover is to hold the Stars the greatest and noblest part of the Universe in a violent state onely to give rest and a natural state to the least and meanest which is the Earth Wherefore the descent of bodies is not because of themselves they affect the Centre of the Earth but for that they are upon a body lighter then themselves order obliging every thing to take its own place and till it be so every body being necessitated to move it self the heaviest downwards and the less heavy upwards Hence water gravitates not in its channel although it be not in its Centre because the upper part of the water is not heavier then the lower The Fourth said That Gravity is a certain quality which carries all bodies towards a common point continuing the union of the parts of the world hindring Vacuity by the concentration of all bodies which press one another the heavy having more matter in less quantity For when we see Air mount above Water and Fire above Air they yield and give place to heavier bodies as Oyle being in the bottom of Water ascends to the top not by its lightness but by the weight of the water which thrusts it up So Lead and all other metals except Gold swim in Mercury to which they yield in gravity For in equal quantities Gold weighs 19 Mercury 13 Lead 11 and ½ Silver 10 and ⅓ Copper 9 Iron 8 and Tin 7 and ½ As for the cause of this gravity which some say is in heavy bodies others in their Centre to which they attribute a magnetical virtue I conceive it consists in a reciprocal attraction of the same bodies which draw and are drawn and others are drawn to the inferiour body which attracts with all its parts so that bodies are carry'd towards the Earth and the Earth attracts them reciprocally as the Load-stone attracts Iron and is attracted by it For 't is evident that the Load-stone draws Iron and to prove that 't is drawn by Iron lay a Load-stone in one scale and in the other an equal weight to it If you apply Iron to the bottom of the scale where the Load-stone is this scale will raise up the other the Iron attracting the Load-stone to it self On the contrary if you approach with the Iron over the Load-stone the scale wherein it is will ascend towards the Iron which attracts it For whereas 't is objected that if the Earth attracted things with all its parts then it would follow that things let down in some hollow of the Earth being attracted by the parts above and those below would not descend by reason of contrary attractions I answer that those bodies being out of their Centres the greatest and strongest part of the Earth which is towards
crowned Or. Holland Or a Lyon gules Bavaria fuselé argent and azure of twenty one pieces placed bendwise Ireland gules a Harp Or. CONFERENCE XCVIII I. Of the causes of Contagion II. Of the ways of occult Writing I. Of the causes of Contagion DIseases being accidents must be divided as other accidents by their first subjects which are the solid parts the humours and the spirits and by their several causes some of which are manifest others unknown the malignity of the causes which produce them and the manner whereby they act being inexplicable Which diversity of causes depends upon those of mixtions which are of two sorts one of the qualities of the elements which makes the difference of temperaments the other of the elementary forms which being contrary only upon the account of their qualities when these put off their contrariety by alteration the forms easily become united and as amongst qualities so amongst forms one becomes predominant the actions whereof are said to proceed from an occult property because the form which produces them is unknown to us So Arsenick and Hemlock besides the power which the first hath to heat and the second to refrigerate have a particular virtue of assaulting the heart and killing speedily by a property hitherto unknown Such also are contagious and venomous diseases some whereof are caus'd by the inspir'd air as the Pestilence because air being absolutely necessary to the support of our natural heat if when it is infected with malignant and mortal vapours it be attracted by the mouth or the pores of the skin it corrupts the mass of the spirits as a crum of bread or other extraneous bodies makes milk or wine become sowre Others infect by bodily contact as the Itch the Pox the Measles and the Leprosie A third sort proceed from a venomous matter either communicated outwardly as by poyson and the biting of venomous beasts or generated in the body as it may happen to the blood black choler and the other humours being extravasated The Second said That diseases proceed either from the corruption and vitiosity of particular bodies some of which are dispos'd to the Pleurisie others to the Flux others to the Colick call'd therefore sporadical or dispers'd and promiscuous diseases or else from some common vitiosity as of the air aliments waters winds or other such common cause whereby many come to be seiz'd upon by the same disease at the same time so after Famines bad nourishment gives a great disposition to the Pestilence These maladies are fix'd to a certain Country seldom extending beyond it as the Leprosie to the Jews the Kings Evil to the Spaniards Burstenness to Narbon the Colick to Poitou the Phthisick to the Portugals the Pox to the Indians call'd by them Apua and brought by the Spaniards into Europe and such other diseases familiar to some particular Country and call'd Endemial Or else they are Epidemical and not ty'd to a certain region but produc'd by other external causes as pestilential and contagious diseases which again are either extraordinary as the Sweating-sickness of England the Coqueluche which was a sort of destillation or ordinary which manifest themselves by purple spots carbuncles and buboes But as the causes of the Small-pox and Measles are chiefly born within us being produc'd of the maternal blood attracted in the womb and cast forth by nature when become more strong so though the seeds of contagious diseases may come from without yet they are commonly within our selves The Third said That Contagion is the communication of a disease from one body to another the most violent so communicable is the Pestilence which is defin'd a most acute contagious venomous and mortal Fever accompani'd with purple spots Buboes and Carbuncles 'T is properly a species of a Fever being a venomous and contra-natural heat kindled in the heart manifesting it self by a high frequent and unequal pulse except when nature yields at first to the violence and malignity of the disease and then the pulse is slow small and languishing but always unequal and irregular Oftentimes it kills the first or second day scarce passes to the seventh if it be simple and legitimate but when 't is accompani'd with putrefaction it reaches sometimes to the fourteenth It s malignity appears in its not yielding to ordinary remedies which operate by their first qualities but only to medicaments which act by occult properties an argument that the cause of these diseases is so too Now four things are here to be consider'd 1. That which is communicated 2. The body which communicates the same 3. That to which it is communicated 4. The medium through which the same is done A thing communicated against nature is either the disease or the cause of the disease or the symptom Here 't is the cause of the disease which is either corporeal or incorporeal The incorporeal in my opinion are the malignant influences of the Stars as of Mars and Saturn and during Comets and Eclipses For since their benigne influences preserve motion and life in all things of the world by the reason of contraries the malignity of the same aspects may be the cause of the diseases and irregularities which we behold in it The corporeal cause must be moveable an humour a vapour or a spirit which malignant evaporations kill oftentimes without any sign of putrefaction or if there be any it proceeds not from the corruption of the humours but from the oppression and suffocation of the natural heat by those malignant vapours and then the humours being destitute of the natural heat and of that of the spirits which preserv'd them turn into poyson There must be some proportion between the body which communicates this vapour and that which receives it but the same is unknown to us and this proportion is the cause that some Contagions seise only upon some animals as Horses Dogs and Cattle others upon Men alone Children Women old Men Women with Child and their burthens others seize only upon certain parts as the Itch is communicated only to the skin the Phthisick to the Lungs the Ophthalmia to the eyes and not to the other parts The medium of this communication is the air which being rare and spongy is very susceptible of such qualities which it easily transmits by its mobility And these qualities happen to it either extrinsecally as from faetid and venomous vapours and fumes exhal'd from carrion marshes impurities and openings of the ground by Earth-quakes which are frequently follow'd by the Pestilence or else they arise in the Air it self in which vapours may acquire a pestilential malignity of which a hot and moist intemperature is very susceptible The Fourth said That the Pestilence is found indifferently in all seasons climates sexes ages and persons which argues that its proximate cause is not the corruption of the humors and intemperature of the first qualities Otherwise the Pestilence should be as other diseases whereof some are hot others cold and be cur'd
countenance Yet besides this change of the natural colour which is red it hath divers other symptomes whereof the chief are a perverse appetite call'd Malacia or Pica Nauseousness Tension of the Hypochondres faintings and palpitations of the heart difficulty of breathing sadness fear languishing weakness and heaviness of all the members an oedematous humour or bloatiness of the feet and the whole face of which accidents those of the alteration of colour being the most perceptible and the pathognomonical signes of this disease have with the vulgar given the denomination to it This malady is not to be sleighted as people imagine being sometimes so violent that the peccant humours being carri'd to the head render the Maidens distracted and mad yea sometimes they dye suddenly of it the heart and its vital faculty being stifled and oppress'd by it For this symptome hurts not only the functions of one part or faculty but invades the whole oeconomy causing an evil habit which degenerates into a Dropsie especially that which the Physitians call Leucophlegmatia or Anasarca when the flesh like a spunge imbibes and attracts all the aqueous and excrementitious humidities The antecedent and prime cause of this malady is the suppression of the menstrual blood the conjunct and proximate is the collection of crude and vicious humours in all the parts of the body which they discolour Now when the blood which serves in women for the principle of generation becomes burdensom to nature either by its quantity or its quality which happens commonly at the age of puberty she expells it by the vessels of the womb which if they be stop'd that blood mingled for the most part with many other excrementitious humours which it carries along with it as torrents do mud returns the same into the trunk of the hollow Vein from thence into the Liver Spleen Mesentery and other Entrails whose natural heat it impairs and hinders their natural functions as concoction and sanguification and so is the cause of the generating of crude humours which being carried into all the parts of the body are nevertheless assimilated and so change their natural colour Of which causes which beget those obstructions in the Vessels of the Matrix the chief are a phlegmatick and viscous blood commonly produc'd by bad food as Lime Chalk Ashes Coals Vinegar Corn and Earth which young Girles purposely eat to procure that complexion out of a false perswasion that it makes them handsomer Yet this malady may happen too from a natural conformation the smalness and closeness of the aforesaid Vessels whence the fat and phlegmatick as the pale are are more subject to it then the lean and brown The Second said 'T is an opinion so universally receiv'd that the Green-sickess comes from Love that those who fight under his Standards affect this colour as his liveries But 't is most appropriate to Maidens as if nature meant to write in their faces what they so artificially conceal and supply for their bashfulness by this dumb language Whereunto their natural Constitution conduecs much being much colder then that of men which is the cause that they beget abundance of superfluous blood which easily corrupts either by the mixture of some humour or for want of free motion like standing waters and inclos'd air and infects the skin the universal Emunctory of all the parts but especially that of the face by reason of its thinness and softness And as obstructions are the cause so opening things are the remedies of this malady as the filings of Steel prepar'd Sena Aloes Myrrhe Safron Cinamon roots of Bryony and Birth-worth Hysope wild Mecury the leaves and flowers of Marigold Broom flowers Capers c. The Third said That the vulgar opinion that all Green-sickness is from Love is a vulgar errour For though the Poet writes that every Lover is pale yet hatred causes paleness too and the consequence cannot be well made from a passion to a habit Besides little Girles of seven and eight years old are troubled with this disease and you cannot think them capable of love no more then that 't is through want of natural purgation in others after the age of puberty for women above fifty yeers old when that purgation ceases have something of this malady Yea men too have some spices of it sometimes and yet the structure of their parts being wholly different from that of females allows not the assigning of the same cause in both Yea did the common conceit hold good that those who have small vessels and as such capable of obstruction are most subject to it yet the contrary will follow to what is inferr'd to their prejudice For they will be the less amorous because the lesser vessels have the lesser blood which is the material cause of Love to which we see sanguine complexions are most inclin'd II. Of Hermaphrodites Upon the second Point 't was said That if Arguments taken from the name of the thing be of good augury Hermaphrodites must have great advantage from theirs as being compounded of the two most agreeable Deities of Antiquity Mercury or Hermes the Courtier of the Gods and Venus or Aphrodite the Goddess of Love to signifie the perfection of both sexes united in one subject And though 't is a fiction of the Poets that the Son begotten of the Adultery of Mercury and Venus was both male and female as well as that of the Nymph Salmacis who embrac'd a young man who was bathing with her so closely that they became one body yet we see in Nature some truth under the veil of these Fables For the greatest part of insects and many perfect animals have the use of either sex As the Hyaena by the report of Appian one year do's the office of a male and the next of a female as the Serpent also doth by the testimony of Aelian and as Aristotle saith the Fish nam'd Trochus and 't is commonly said that the Hare impregnates it self Pliny mentions some Nations who are born Hermaphrodites having the right breast of a Man and the left of a Woman Plato saith that Mankind began by Hermaphrodites our first Parents being both Male and Female and that having then nothing to desire out of themselves the Gods became jealous of them and divided them into two which is the reason that they seek their first union so passionately and that the sacred tye of Marriage was first instituted All which Plato undoubtedly learn'd out of Genesis For he had read where 't is said before Eves formation or separation from Adam is mention'd That God created Man and that he created Male and Female The Second said That Natural Reason admits not Hermaphrodites for we consider not those who have onely the appearances of genital parts which Nature may give them as to Monsters two Heads four Arms and so of the other parts through the copiousness of matter but those who have the use and perfection of the same which consists in Generation For Nature having
never put into the same subject an internal and radical principal of two contrary desires as that of Man is to that of Woman the one consisting in action the other in passion the one in giving the other in receiving they cannot belong to one single individual which should also be both Agent and Patient contrary to the common Axiom founded upon the first Principle that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time Moreover the qualities of the Genitures being contrary that of the Woman cold and moist and that of the Man hot and dry they cannot meet in the same subject in so excellent a degree as is requir'd to generation For the strength divided is never so vigorous as united especially when its subjects are different No Hermaphrodites ever us'd both sexes perfectly but at least one of them weakly and abusively and consequently they are justly punish'd by the Laws For were both parts equally fit for Generation 't were contrary to policy to hinder them from using the same propagations being the chief Nerves of a State But these people are oblig'd to make choice of one Sex that by this election it may be konwn which they exercise best and may be prohibited the abuse of the other The Third said There 's nothing in Nature so disunited but is rejoyn'd by some medium As there are Spirits apart and Bodies apart so there are animated Bodies consisting of both Amongst beasts Leopards Mules Doggs and many others partake of two different Natures the Bat is between a beast and a bird as Frogs Ducks and other amphibious creatures partly Fish and partly Terrestial Animals The Bonaretz is a plant and an animal the Mushrome is between earth and a plant So since there is Man and Woman there may also be some nature containing both As to the cause of them besides nature's general inclination to reunite different things it seems that the same which produces monsters produces also Hermaprodites especially when the matter is more then needs a single Man or Woman and too little for two Nature herein imitating a Founder who casting his metal in a mould if there be any over-plus it sticks to the Piece which he intended to form Unless you had rather say that if both the seeds be of equal power and neither predominant over the other the Formative Virtue then produces both sexes which it would have distinguish'd into two Twins had there been matter sufficient for two Twins Whereunto also the Imagination of the Mother may also contribute For since some have been born with Virilities sticking at the end of their Nose and other places of the Countenance Nature seems less extravagant when she places them in their true situation there being no likelyhood in the Astrologers account that the conjunction of Mercury and Venus in the eight house which they assign to births is the cause hereof The Fourth said That Hermaphrodites being of those rare and extraordinary effects which fall no more under Law then under Reason 't is very difficult to assign the true natural causes of them Yea if there be nothing less known then forms and their original even when Nature acts regularly we cannot but be more at a loss in the combinations of forms and species and coupling of sexes which are deviations from the rule of Nature Hermaphrodites who have both sexes are of four sorts for they have Virilities in the ordinary place and muliebrities either in the perinaeum or the scrotum or else the feminine parts being in their right place the masculine appear above them as is seen many times in Goats or lastly the Virilities lying hid in the middle of the other at length come forth as ha's hapned to many Girls and Women turn'd into Men as to Marie Germain by the relation of Montagne to Arescon a Native of Argos who was sirnam'd Arescusa according to Martianus And Hippocrates affirms in 6. Epid. that a Woman nam'd Phaetusa who after she had had Children by her Husband Pytheus the Abderite this her Husband being long absent from her she came to have a beard and the other badges of virility The same he also testifies to have hapned to Namysia the wife of Gorippus in the Isle of Thasus Of which effects we shall easily find the reason if we say with Galen that Woman is an imperfect Animal and a fragment of Mankind and so 't will be no wonder to see a Woman become a Man then to see all other things acquire the perfection due to their Nature which they ought to attain lest their inclination thereunto be in vain Moreover 't is certain that a Woman desires a Man as Matter doth Form Power Act Imperfection Perfection Deformity Beauty in a word the Female the Male Nature affording us many examples of these changes of sexes and metamorphoses So Metals and Elements are turn'd one into another Wheat into Cockle Rye into Wheat Barley into Oats Origanum into Wild Thyme Sisymbrium into Mint Which caus'd Anaxagoras to say That every thing is in every thing According to which principle the Male is actually in his Female and Hermaphrodites are no more saving 't is more conspicuous So that the Ancients left us some truths under the figures of a god Lunus and the Moon and of a bearded Venus to whom the Dames of Athens sacrific'd in mens clothes The Fifth said That the transmutation of sexes is impossible by reason of the diversity of the Genitories in Men and Women which is greater then is here fit to be display'd But those Maidens who have been thought to change their Sex were Hermaphrodites who retain'd the marks of the Feminine sex onely till a certain age as that of Puberty when the increased heat driving the Virilities forth did the same thing as it doth in Children whom it enables to speak at a certain age Unless you will say that the Clitoris caus'd the mistake by its resemblance as it happens in that symptome call'd by Aegineta Cereosis or Cauda which makes Tribades pass for Hermaprodites The change of Men into Women not like that of Nero and Sardanapalus but of Tiresias mention'd by the Poets is more impossible unlesse they suppos'd that some causes destroying the heat of the Genital parts and weakning the strength the Virilities came to wither and retire inwards as the Umbilical vessels do after the faetus is born and that Nature conform'd to the cold temper superven'd in the whole body FINIS Ludus Literarius Ludi-Magistri Nihil est ex omni parte beatum Jupiter est quodcunque vides quodcunque movetur Lucan Id quod inserius est sicut illud quod est superius You may see the figure of these Parhelij in Des Cartes Meteors Splen ridere facit Mundus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ornatus Eclesiasticus Sign Weeping Oderint dum mutuant * Guy fig. Misletoe