a Skinny Substance or hinder the swallowing of our Meat therefore these annulary Gristles are not made round or entire Circles but where the Gullet touches the Windpipe there to fill up the Circle is only a soft Membrane which may easily give way to the Dilatation of the Gullet And to demonstrate that this was designedly done for this End and Use so soon as the Windpipe enters the Lungs its Cartilages are no longer deficient but perfect Circles or Rings because there was no necessity they should be so but it was more convenient they should be entire Lâ—â—â—ly for the various modulation of the Voice the upper end of the Wind-pipe is endued with several Cartilages and Muscles to contract or dilate it as we would have our Voice Flat or Sharp and moreover the whole is continually moistened with a glutinous Humor issuing out of the small Glandules that are upon its inner Coat to fence it against the sharp Air received in or Breath forced out yet is it of quick and tender Sense that it may be easily provoked to cast out by coughing whatever may fall into it from without or be discharged into it from within Seventhly The Heart which hath been always esteemed and really is one of the principal Parts of the Body the primum vivens ultimum moriens by its uncessant Motion distributing the Blood the Vehicle of Life and with it the Vital Heat and Spirits throughout the whole Body whereby it doth continually irrigate nourish and keep hot and supple all the Members Is it not admirable that from this Fountain of Life and Heat there should be Channels and Conduit-pipes to every even the least and most remote Part of the Body just as if from one Waterhouse there should be Pipes conveying the Water to every House in a Town and to every Room in each House or from one Fountain in a Garden there should be little Channels or Dikes cut to every Bed and every Plant growing therein as we have seen more than once done beyond the Seas I confess the Heart seems not to be designed to so noble an Use as is generally believed that is to be the Fountain or Conservatory of the vital Flame and to inspire the Blood therewith for the Lungs serve rather for the accension or maintaining that Flame the Blood receiving there from the Air those Particles which are one Part of the Pabulum or Fewel thereof and so impregnated running back to the Heart but to serve as a Machine to receive the Blood from the Veins and to force it out by the Arteries through the whole Body as a Syringe doth any Liquor though not by the same Artifice And yet this is no ignoble Use the continuance of the Circulation of the Blood being indispensibly necessary for the quickening and enlivening of all the Members of the Body and supplying of Matter to the Brain for the preparation of the Animal Spirits the Instruments of all Sense and Motion Now for this use of receiving and pumping out of the Blood the Heart is admirably contrived For First being a Muscular Part the Sides of it are composed of two orders of Fibres running circularly or spirally from Base to Tip contrarily one to the other and so being drawn or contracted contrary ways do violently constringe and straiten the Ventricles and strongly force out the Blood as we have formerly intimated Then the Vessels we call Arteries which carry from the Heart to the several Parts have Valves which open outwards like Trap-doors and give the Blood a free passage out of the Heart but will not suffer it to return back again thither and the Veins which bring it back from the several Members to the Heart have Valves or Trap-doors which open inwards so as to give way to the Blood to run into the Heart but prevent it from running back again that way Besides the Arteries consist of a quandruple Coat the Third of which is made up of annular or orbicular carneous Fibres to a good thickness and is of a Muscular Nature after every Pulse of the Heart serving to contract the Vessel successively with incredible celerity so by a kind of peristaltick Motion impelling the Blood onwards to the capillary Extremities and through the Muscles with great force and swiftness So the Pulse of the Arteries is not only caused by the pulsation of the Heart driving the Blood through them in manner of a Wave or Flush as Des Cartes and others would have it but by the Coats of the Arteries themselves which the experiments of a certain Lovain Physitian the first whereof is Galens do in my opinion make good against him First saith he if you slit the Artery and thrust into it a Pipe so big as to fill the Cavity of it and cast a strait ligature upon that part of the Artery containing the Pipe and so bind it fast to the Pipe notwithstanding the Blood hath free passage through the Pipe yet will not the Artery beat below the ligature but do but take off the ligature it will commence again to beat immediately But because one might be ready to reply to this Experiment that the reason why when bound it did not beat was because the current of the Blood being straitned by the Pipe when beneath the Pipe it came to have more liberty was not sufficient to stretch the Coats of the Artery and so cause a Pulse but when the ligature was taken off it might flow between the enclosed tube and the Coat of the Artery therefore he adds another which clearly evinces that this could not be the reason but that it is something flowing down the Coats of the Artery that causes the Pulse that is If you straiten the Artery never so much provided the sides of it do not quite meet and stop all passage of the Blood the Vessel will notwithstanding continue still to beat below or beyond the Coarctation So we see some Physitians both Ancient as Galen and Modern were of opinion that the Pulse of the Arteries was owing to their Coats though the first that I know of who observed the third Coat of an Artery to be a muscular Body composed of annulary Fibres was Dr. Willis The mention of the peristaltick Motion puts me in mind of an ocular Demonstration of it in the Gullet of Kine when they chew the Cud which I have often beheld with pleasure For after they have swallowed one morsel if you look stedfastly upon their Throat you will soon see another ascend and run pretty swiftly all along the Throat up to the Mouth which it could not do unless it were impelled by the successive contraction or peristaltick Motion of the Gullet continually following it And it is remarkable that these ruminant Creatures have a power by the imperium of their wills of directing this peristaltick Motion upwards or downwards I shall add no more concerning the Heart but that it and the Brain do mutuas operas tradere enable one another
no use of respiration by the Lungs the Blood doth not all I may say not the greatest part of it flow through them but there are two Passages or Channels contrived one called the foramen ovale by which part of the Blood brought by the vena cava passeth immediately into the left Ventricle of the Heart without entring the right at all the other is a large arterial Channel passing from the pulmonary Artery immediately into the Aorta or great Artery which likewise derives part of the Blood thither without running at all into the Lungs These two are closed up soon after the Child is born when it breaths no more as I may so say by the Placenta uterina but respiration by the Lungs is needful for it It is here to be noted that though the Lungs be formed so soon as the other Parts yet during the abode of the foetus in the Womb they lie by as useless In like manner I have observed that in ruminating Creatures the three formost Stomachs not only during the continuance of the Young in the Womb but so long as it is fed with Milk are unemployed and useless the Milk passing immediately into the fourth Another Observation I shall add concerning Generation which is of some moment because it takes away some concessions of Naturalists that give countenance to the Atheists fictitious and ridiculous Account of the first production of Mankind and other Animals viz. that all sorts of Insects yea and some Quadrupeds too as Frogs and Mice are produced Spontaneously My Observation and Affirmation is that there is no such thing in Nature as Aequivocal or Spontaneous Generation but that all Animals as well small as great not excluding the vilest and most contemptible Insect are generated by Animal Parents of the same Species with themselves that noble Italian Vertuoso Francesco Redi having experimented that no putrified Flesh which one would think were the most likely of any thing will of itself if all Insects be carefully kept from it produce any The same Experiment I remember Doctor Wilkins late Bishop of Chester told me had been made by some of the Royal Society No instance against this Opinion doth so much puzzle me as Worms bred in the Intestines of Man and other Animals But seeing the round Worms do manifestly generate and probably the other kinds too it 's likely they come originally from Seed which how it was brought into the Guts may afterwards possibly be discovered Moreover I am inclinable to believe that all Plants too that themselves produce Seed which are all but some very imperfect ones which scarce deserve the name of Plants come of Seeds themselves For that great Naturalist Malpighius to make experiment whether Earth would of its self put forth Plants took some purposely digged out of a deep Place and put it into a Glass Vessel the top whereof he covered with Silk many times doubled and strained over it which would admit the Water and Air to pass through but exclude the least Seed that might be wafted by the Wind the event was that no Plant at all sprang up in it nor need we wonder how in a Ditch Bank or Grass-Plat newly dig'd or in the Fenbanks in the Isle of Ely Mustard should abundantly spring up where in the Memory of Man none had been known to grow for it might come of Seed which had lain there more than a Mans Age. Some of the Ancients mentioning some Seeds that retain their fecundity Forty Years As for the Mustard that sprung up in the Isle of Ely though there never had been any in that Country yet might it have been brought down in the Channels by the Floods and so being thrown up the Banks together with the Earth might germinate and grow there From this Discourse concerning the Body of Man I shall make Three Practical Inferences First Let us give thanks to Almighty God for the Perfection and Integrity of our Bodies It would not be amiss to put it into the Eucharistical parr of our daily Devotions We praise thee O God for the due Number Shape and Use of our Limbs and Senses and in general of all the Parts of our Bodies we bless thee for the sound and healthful Constitution of them It is thou that hast made us and not we our selves in thy Book were all our Members written The Mother that bears the Child in her Womb is not conscious to any thing that is done there she understands no more how the Infant is formed than itself doth But if God hath bestowed upon us any peculiar Gift or Endowment wherein we excel others as Strength or Beauty or Activity we ought to give him special thanks for it but not to think the better of our selves therefore or despise them that want it Now because these Bodily Perfections being common Blessings we are apt not at all to consider them or not to set a just value on them and because the worth of things is best discerned by their want it would be useful sometimes to imagine or suppose our selves by some accident to be depriv'd of one of our Limbs or Senses as a Hand or a Foot or an Eye for then we cannot but be sensible that we should be in worse condition than now we are and that we should soon find a difference between two Hands and one Hand two Eyes and one Eye and that two excel one as much in worth as they do in number and yet if we could spare the use of the lost part the deformity and unsightlyness of such a defect in the Body would alone be very grievous to us Again which is less suppose we only that our Bodies want of their just magnitude or that they or any of our Members are crooked or distorted or disproportionate to the rest either in excess or defect nay which is least of all that the due motion of any one part be perverted as but of the Eyes in squinting the Eye-lids in twinkling the Tongue in stammering these things are such Blemishes and Offences to us by making us Gazing-stocks to others and Objects of their Scorn and Derision that we could be content to part with a good part of our Estates to repair such defects or heal such Infirmities These things considered and duly weighed would surely be a great and effectual motive to excite in us Gratitude for this Integrity of our Bodies and to esteem it no small blessing I say a blessing and favor of God to us for some there be that want it and why might not we have been of that number God was no way obliged to bestow it upon us And as we are to give thanks for the Integrity of our Body so are we likewise for the Health of it and the sound Temper and Constitution of all its Parts and Humors Health being the principal blessing of this Life without which we cannot enjoy or take comfort in any thing besides Neither are we to give thanks alone
it must necessarily continue to do so the next but it stands in as much need of an Efficient to preserve and continue its motion as it did at first to produce it Secondly Let Matter be divided into the subtilest parts imaginable and these be moved as swiftly as you will it is but a sensless and stupid Being still and makes no nearer approach to Sense Perception or vital Energy than it had before and do but only stop the internal motion of its parts and reduce them to Rest the finest and most subtile Body that is may become as gross and heavy and stiff as Steel or Stone And as for any external Laws or established Rules of Motion the stupid Matter is not capable of observing or taking any notice of them neither can those Laws execute themselves Therefore there must besides Matter and Law be some Efficient and that either a Quality or Power inherent in the Matter itself which is hard to conceive or some external intelligent Agent either God himself immediately or some Plastick Nature This latter I incline to for the Reasons alledged by Dr. Cudworth in his System Pag. 149. which are First Because the former according to vulgar apprehension would render the Divine Providence operose solicitous and distractious and thereby make the belief of it entertained with greater difficulty and give advantage to Atheists Secondly It is not so decorous in respect of God that he should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set his own hand as it were to every work and immediately do all the meanest and triflingst things himself drudgingly without making use of any inferiour or subordinate Ministers These two Reasons are plausible but not cogent the two following are of greater force Thirdly The slow and gradual Process that is in the generation of things which would seem to be a vain and idle Pomp or trifling Formality if the Agent were omnipotent Fourthly Those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls them those Errors and Bungles which are committed when the matter is inept or contumacious as in Monsters c. which argue the Agent not to be irresistible and that Nature is such a thing as is not altogether uncapable as well as Human Art of being sometimes frustrated and disappointed by the indisposition of the Matter Whereas an Omnipotent Agent would always do its Work infallibly and irresistibly no ineptitude or stubbornness of the Matter being ever able to hinder such an one or make him bungle or fumble in any thing So far the Doctor For my part I should make no Scruple to attribute the formation of Plants their growth and nutrition to the vegetative Soul in them and likewise the formation of Animals to the vegetative Power of their Souls but that the Segments and Cuttings of some Plants nay the very Chips and smallest Fragments of their Body Branches or Roots will grow and become perfect Plants themselves and so the vegetative Soul if that were the Architect would be divisible and consequently no spiritual or intelligent Being which the Plastick Principle must be as we have shewn For that must preside over the whole Oeconomy of the Plant and be one single Agent which takes care of the Bulk and Figure of the whole and the Situation Figure Texture of all the Parts Root Stalk Branches Leaves Flowers Fruit and all their Vessels and Juices I therefore incline to Dr. Cudworth's Opinion that God uses for these Effects the subordinate Ministry of some inferiour Plastick Nature as in his works of Providence he doth of Angels For the Description whereof I refer the Reader to his System Secondly In particular I am difficult to believe that the Bodies of Animals can be formed by Matter divided and moved by what Laws you will or can imagine without the immediate Presidency Direction and Regulation of some Intelligent Being In the generation or first formation of suppose the Human Body out of though not an Homogeneous Liquor yet a fluid Substance the only material Agent or Mover is a moderate Heat Now how this by producing an intestine Motion in the particles of the Matter which can be conceived to differ in nothing else but Figure Magnitude and Gravity should by virtue thereof not only separate the Heterogeneous Parts but assemble the Homogeneous into Masses or Systems and that not each kind into one Mass but into many and disjoyned ones as it were so many Troups and that in each Troup the particular Particles should take their places and cast themselves into such a figure as for Example the Bones being about 300 are formed of various sizes and shapes so situate and connected as to be subservient to many hundred Intentions and Uses and many of them conspire to one and the same Action this I say I cannot by any means conceive I might instance in all the Homogeneous Parts of the body their Sites and Figures and ask by what imaginable laws of Motion their bulk figure situation and connexion can be made out What account can be given of the Valves of the Veins and Arteries of the heart and of the Veins elsewhere and of their situation of the figure and consistency of all the Humours and Membranes of the eye all conspiring and exactly fitted to the use of Seeing but I have touched upon that already and shall discourse of it largely afterward You will ask me who or what is the Operator in the Formation of the bodies of Man and other Animals I answer The sensitive Soul itself if it be a spiritual and immaterial Substance as I am inclineable to believe But if it be material and consequently the whole Animal but a mere Machine or Automaton as I can hardly admit then must we have recourse to a Plastick Nature That the Soul of Brutes is material and the whole Animal Soul and Body but a mere Machine is the Opinion publickly owned and declared of Des Cartes Gassendus Dr. Willis and others the same is also necessarily consequent upon the Doctrine of the Peripateticks viz. that the sensitive Soul is educed out of the Power of the Matter For nothing can be educed out of the matter but what was there before which must be either Matter or some Modification of it And therefore they cannot grant it to be a spiritual Substance unless they will assert it to be educed out of nothing This Opinion I say I can hardly digest I should rather think Animals to be endued with a lower Degree of Reason than that they are mere Machines I could instance in many Actions of Brutes that are hardly to be accounted for without Reason and Argumentation as that commonly noted of Dogs that running before their Masters they will stop at a divarication of the way till they see which hand their Masters will take and that when they have gotten a Prey which they fear their Masters will take from them they will run away and hide it and afterwards return to it and many the like Actions which I shall