Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	action_n	add_v	animal_n	24	3	9.4347	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35985	Of bodies and of mans soul to discover the immortality of reasonable souls : with two discourses, Of the powder of sympathy, and, Of the vegetation of plants / by Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight.	Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.	1669 (1669)	Wing D1445; ESTC R20320	537,916	646

Spirits with Animal Spirits and with Bloud and by these the Animal is heated nourished and made partaker of Sense and Motion Now refering the Particular motions of Living Creatures to another time we may observe that both kinds of them as well Vegetables as Animals agree in the nature of sustaining themselvs in the three common actions of generation nutrition and augmentation which are the begining the progress and the conserving of life To which three we may add the not so much action as passion of Death and of Sickness or decay which is the way to death CHAP. XXIV A more particular survey of the generation of Animals in which is discover'd what part of the Animal is first generated TO begin then with examining how Living Creatures are in gender'd our main question shall be Whether they be framed entirely at once or successively one part after another And if this latter way which part first Upon the discussion of which all that concerns generation will be explicated as much as concerns our purpose in hand To deduce this from its origine we may remember how our Masters tell us that when any living creature is past the heat of its augmentation or growing the superfluous nourishment settles it self in some appointed place of the body to serve for the production of some other Now it is evident that this superfluity comes from all parts of the body and may be said to contain in it after some sort the perfection of the whole living creature Be it how it will 't is manifest that the living creature is made of this superfluous moysture of the parent which according to the opinion of some being compounded of several parts derived from the several limbs of the parent those parts when they come to be fermented in convenient heat and moysture take their posture and situation according to the posture and disposition of parts that the living creature had from whence they issued and then they growing daily greater and solider the effects of moysture and heat at length become such a creature as that was from whence they had their origine Which an accident that I remember seems much to confirm It was of a Cat that had 't is tail cut off when it was very young which Cat hapning afterwards to have young ones half the kitlings proved without tails and the other half had them in an ordinary manner as if nature could supply but on one partners side not on both And another particular that I saw when I was at Argiers makes to this purpose which was a woman that having two thumbs upon the left hand four daughters that she had all resembled her in the same accident and so did a little child a girl of her eldest daughters but none of her sons Whiles I was there I had a particular curiosity to see them all and though it be not easily permited to Christans to speak familiarly with Mahometan women yet the condition I was in there and the civillity of the Basha gave me the opportunity of full view and discourse with them And the old woman told me that her mother and grandmother had been in the same manner But for them it rests upon her credit the others I saw my self But the opinion which these accidents seem to support though at the first view it seems smoothly to satisfie our inquiry and fairly to compass the making of a living creature yet looking further into it we shall find it fall exceeding short of its promising and meet with such difficulties as it cannot overcome For first let us cast about how this compound of several parts that servs for the generation of a new living creature can be gather'd from every part and member of the parent so to carry with it in little the complete nature of it The meaning hereof must be that this superfluous aliment either passes through all and every little part and particle of the parents body and in its passage receives somthing from them or else that it receives only from all similiar and great parts The former seems impossible for how can one imagine that such juice should circulate the whole body of an Animal and visit every atome of it and retire to the reserve where it is kept for generation and no part of it remain absolutely behind sticking to the flesh or bones that it bedews but that still some part returns back from every part of the Animal Besides consider those parts that are most remote from the channels which convey this juyce how when they are fuller of nourishment then they need the juyce which overflows from them comes to the next part and setling there and serving it for its due nourishment drives back into the channel that which was betwixt the channel and it self so that here there is no return at all from some of the remote parts and much of that juyce which is rejected never went far from the channel it self We may therfore safely conclude that 't is impossible every little part of the whole body should remit somthing impregnated and imbued with the nature of it But then you may peradventure say that every similiar part doth If so I would ask how it is possible that by fermentation only every part should regularly go to a determinate place to make that kind of Animal in which every similiar part is diffused to so great an extent How should the nature of flesh here become broad there round and take just the figure of the part it is to cover How should a bone here be hollow there be blady and in another part take the form of a rib and those many figures which we see of bones And the like we might ask of every other similiar part as of the veins and the rest Again seeing it must of necessity happen that at one time more is remitted from one part then from another how comes it to pass that in the collection the due proportion of nature is so punctually observed Shall we say that this is done by some cunning artificer whose work it is to set all these parts in their due posture which Aristotle attributes to the seed of the male But this is impossible for all this diversity of work is to be done at one time and in the same occasions which can no more be effected by one agent then multiplicity can immediately proceed from unity But besides that there can be no agent to dispose of the parts when they are gather'd 't is evident that a sensitive creature may be made without any such gathering of parts beforehand from another of the same kind for else how could vermine breed out of living bodies or out of corruption How could Rats come to fill ships into which never any were brought How could Frogs be ingendred in the air Eels of dewy turfs or of mud Toads of Ducks Fishs of Herns and the like To the same purpose when one species or kind of Animal

man were nourish'd continually with such meat and greedily affected it which another had aversion from there would naturally follow much dislike between them unless some superiour regard should master this aversion of the sense And I remember to have seen two notable examples of it One in Spain of a Gentleman that had a horrour to Garlike who though he was very subject to the impressions of beauty could never wean himself from an aversion he had setled in him to a very handsome woman that used to eat much Garlike though to win him she forbore the use of that meat which to her was the most savoury of all others And the like I knew in England between two whereof one extremely loved Cheese and the other as much hated it and would fall into a strange agony and be reduced one would think to the point of death if by inadvertency or others trial of him he had swallow'd never so little of what the other would have quitted all meats else to live upon And not only such aversions as spring from differences of complexions in the constitutions of several animals cause these effects of fear and trembling and flying from those that make such impressions but even the seeing them angry and in fury doth the like for such passions alters the spirits and they issuing from the body of the animal in passion cannot choose but be receiv'd by another in a different manner than if they were of another temper Then if the one kind be agreeable to their nature the other must needs be displeasing And this may be the reason why Bees never sting such as are of a milde and gentle disposition and will never agree with others that are of a froward and angry nature And the same one may observe among Dogs And peradventure a mans fantasie may be raised to such a height of fury that the fiercest beast may be afraid to look on him and cannot endure that those mastering spirits which stream out of the mans eye should come into his so much they distemper his fantasie and therfore he will turn away from the man and avoid him Which discourse may be confirm'd by sundry examples of Lions and Bears that have run from angry and confident men and the like Since then a man that in his naturall hew gives no distast so much affrights fiercest beasts when he puts on his threatning looks 't is no wonder that beasts of a milder and softer nature should have fear of him setled in them when they never saw him otherwise than angry and working mischief to them And since their brood receive from their parents a nature easily moved to fear or anger by the sight of what moved them 't is not strange that at the first sight they should tremble or swell according as the inward wotion of the spirits affords Now if this hath render'd the Birds in the wild Islands afraid of men who otherwise would be indifferent to them 't is no marvel to see more violent effects in the Lambs aversion from the Wolf or in the Larks from the Hobbey since they peradventure have over and above the hurt they use to do them a deformity in their constitutions and therfore though a Lark will flie as well from a man as from a Hobbey yet because there is one cause more for his dislike against the Hobbey than against the man namely the deformity of their constitutions he will flie into the mans hand to avoid the Hawks talons To some of these causes all Antipathies may be reduced and the like reason may be given for the Sympathies we see between some creatures The little corporeities which issue from the one have such a conformity with the temper of the other that it is therby moved to joyn it self to the body from whence they flow and affects union with it in that way as it receives the impression If the smell please it the beast will always be smelling at it if the tast nothing shall hinder it from feeding upon it when it can reach it The Fishermen upon the bank over against Newfound Land report that there flocks about them a kind of Bird so greedy of the Fishes livers which they take there as that to come at and feed on them they will suffer the men to take them in their hands and not flie away as long as any of their desired meat is in their eye whence the French-men that fish there call them Happe Foyes. The like power a certain Worm has with Nightingales And thus you see how they are strong impressions upon sense and not any discouse of reason that govern Beasts in their actions For if their avoiding men did proceed from any s●gacity in their nature surely they would exercise it when they see that for a bit of meat they incur their destruction and yet neither the examples of their fellows kill'd before their eyes in the same pursuit not the blows which themselvs do feel can serve them for warning where the sense is so strongly affected but as soon as the blow that removed them is passed if it miss killing or laming them and they be gotten on wing again they 'l return to their prey as eagerly and as confidently as if nothing were there to hinder them This then being the true reason of all Sympathy and Antipathy we cannot admit that any Beasts should love or hate one another for any other cause than some of those we have touched All which are reduced to local motion and to material application of bodies of one nature to bodies of another and are as well trasmitted to their young ones as begotten in themselvs And as the satisfying of their sense is more prevalent in the Happe Foyes than the fear which from other grounds is begotten in their fantasy and so makes them approach to what the other would drive them from In like manner any aversion of the fantasy may be master'd not only by a more powerful agent upon the present sense but also by assuefaction and bringing into the fantasy with pleasing circumstances that object which before was displeasing and affrightful to it As we see that all sorts of Beasts or Birds if they be taken young may be ●amed and will live quietly together Dogs that are used to hunt and kill Deer will live friendly with one that is bred with them and that Fawn which otherwise would have bin afraid of them by such education grows confident and plays boldly with them Of which we can no longer remain in doubt if we will believe the story of a Tyger accounted the cruellest beast of all others who being shut up with a Deer that had bin bred with him from a Kid and from his being a Whelp and no meat given him used means to break prison when he was half starved rather than he would hurt his familiar friend You will not suspect that it was a moral consideration which made him so kind but the Deer