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heart_n artery_n blood_n lung_n 3,010 5 11.3115 5 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A34555 A philosophicall discourse concerning speech, conformable to the Cartesian principles Englished out of French.; Discours physique de la parole. English Cordemoy, GĂ©raud de, d. 1684. 1668 (1668) Wing C6282; ESTC R2281 53,423 154

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of the food does not fail to excite them to repeat the same songs or words And to understand this well we must conceive that Brutes learn their cry from others of their kind and that ordinarily the food is the cause of it For their young ones having at the same time their Ears struck by the cries always made by their Dams at the presence of some food which they have not yet the possession of and their Eyes also struck by that food it self it must come to pass that the place of their brain which always receives those two agitations at once gets thence in time such an impression made in it that the spirits taking their course from that place to the throat and the muscles serving for the voice must needs dispose them after such a manner as answering to the impression of the brain causeth those young ones to make a cry like that of their Dam. But when they are brought up by men and when Linets for example are bred in a Cage and that in-stead of the cry of their Dam it happens that in the presence of the food certain strange songs or humane words strike their ears 't is no wonder if those words or songs making impression in the same place of the brain whence that food should have made the spirits to flow into the muscles of the throat and beak to cause them to make the noise which birds make at the presence of a food they hold not yet are cause that the spirits being otherwise directed do also otherwise dispose the muscles of the throat tongue and beak of those young Birds and make them sing songs and utter words instead of the cry which they would have form'd if their Dam had bred them This must needs so happen and even those songs or words may then be call'd their natural cry or song because having always accompany'd an action that hath made so deep an Impression on their brain it cannot be that that action should move their brain and the spirits should not also flow presently to the muscles which serve for that song or those words And likewise if they have been put in a certain condition or in a certain place to make them learn the better they will sooner repeat what they have been taught if they be put again in the same condition and place than in any other 'T is easie also to understand why it hath sometimes happn'd that a great noise as that of a Trumpet having at one blow shaken altogether the ear of a Bird hath made so strong an Impression in his brain that having struck out all the others the spirits have no more diffused themselves towards his throat than in such a manner as might dispose the muscles of the Larinx to return sounds altogether like that of a Trumpet And we must not wonder if the passages through which those spirits flow to the throat being more difficult to be moved than the brain to be shaken the Bird remains sometimes in a kind of silence for many days before he renders that sound nor also if that silence be perpetual when the parts which serve for the voice are not capable to form a like one to the sound which hath so strongly mov'd the Brain In short there is no intelligent man who after this discourse sees not why an Animal being born deaf must needs be dumb From all which it results with sufficient evidence to a considering Man first That 't is the Lungs and the structure of the Wind-pipe the mouth the palat the teeth and the muscles of all those parts which by receiving and repelling or in diversly modifying the Air is the cause enabling us to form Voices and to articulate them Secondly That 't is by reason of the communication which is between the brains and the other parts of the body of every Animal that it is diversly agitated by those Voices Thirdly That in every Animal capable to form Voices there is such a commerce from the ear to the brain and from the brain to all the parts serving for the voice that the same voice which shakes the brain by the intervention of the ear disposeth it also to diffuse the spirits into the muscles of those parts which spirits putting them into a posture answerable to the manner in which that voice did strike the brain make them form a voice altogether like it if some pressing necessity of the Animal diverts not the course of the spirits to another place Which being once well understood it will be easie to know a thousand things which commonly enough are not known touching the different effects of the cry and noise of Animals which I mean not to explain more particularly because that all those who have attention enough to conceive the few principles which I have laid down will from thence draw all what is necessary to explain it and because those that are not capable of such an attention would not conceive what I could say of it even in a more particular discourse I shall only stay to consider here that according to these Principles Brutes need no Soul to cry or to be moved by cries For if they be toucht in any place or their nerves struck with force enough to cause a great shake in their Brain 't is sufficiently easie to conceive that that action agitating the spirits these must flow much more swiftly into the muscles and by this means the swiftness of those that run incessantly to the heart augmenting must render the pulses thereof more precipitate which maketh it propel so great a plenty of bloud into the Artery of the Lungs that this Artery being more distended than ordinarily presseth the Wind-pipe and maketh the air to be driven out of the Lungs with an impetuosity answerable to that whereby the bloud enter'd there The second effect of this quick agitation of the spirits is that at the same time they flow to the heart some of them diffuse themselves also to all the other muscles that are in a continual action as those of the breast because whereas the passages through which the spirits are conveyed in those sorts of muscles are alwayes open by reason of the necessity of their continual action the spirits cannot receive a new motion without presently communicating it to those Muscles which causeth those of the Diaphragme and Breast press the Breast in such a manner as makes the air issue out with unusual force and seeing the muscles of the Larinx are also strongly agitated the air thence getting out is beaten in a manner which holds somewhat of that agitation Thus it may be conceived from the sole disposition of the Body why a Brute cries And to know how it may be moved by cries without having a Soul you need but remember the communion there is between the brain the parts serving for the voice and all the parts of the body For if according to the difference of cries the brains are diversly moved