concerning the motion of the heart 5. The motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by bloud 6. An objection answer'd against the former doctrine 7. The Circulation of the Bloud and other effects that follow the motions of the heart 8. Of Nutrition 9. Of Argumentation 10. Of Death and Sickness 1. The connxeion of the subsequent chapters with the precedent 2. Of the Senses and sensible qualities in general And of the end for which they serve 3. Of the sense of Touching and that both it and its qualities are bodies 4. Of the Tast and its qualities that they are bodies 5. That the Smell and its qualities are real bodies 6. Of the conformity betwixt the two Senses of Smelling and Tasting 7. The reason why the sense of Smelling is not so perfect in man as in beasts with a wonderful history of a man who could wind a scent as a well as any beast 1. Of the sense of Hearing and that Sound is purely motion 2. Of divers arts belonging to the sense of Hearing all which confirm that Sound is nothing but motion 3. To same is confirm'd by the effects caused by great noises 4. That solid bodies may convey the motion of the ayr or sound to the organ of hearing 5. Where the motion is interrupted there is no sound 6. That not only the motion of the air but all other motions coming to our ears make sounds 7. How own sense may supply the want of an other 4. Of one who could discern sounds of words with his eyes 9. Divers reasons to prove sound to be nothing else but a motion of some real body 1. That Colours are nothing but light mingled with darkness or the disposition of a bodies superficies apt to reflect light so mingled 2. Concerning the disposition of those bodies which produce white or black coulours 3. The former doctrine confirm'd by Aristotles authority reason experience 4. How the diversity of colours follows out of various degrees of rarity and density 5. Why some bodies are Diaphanous others Opacous 6. The former doctrine of colours confirm'd by the generation of white and black in bodies 1. Apparitions of colours through a Prism or triangular-glass are of two sorts 2. The several parts of the object make several angles at their entrance into the Prism 6 The reason why somtimes the same object appears through the Prism in two places and in one place mor lively in the other place more dim 4 The reason of the various colours that appear in looking through a Prism 5. The reason why the Prism in one position may make the colours appear quite contrary to what they did when it was in another position 6. The reason of the various colours in general by pure light passing through a Prism 7. Upon what side every colour appears this is made by pure light passing through a Prism 1. The reason of each several colour in particular caused by light passing through a Prism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—ing the Prism 3 Of the Rainbow and how by the colour of any body we may know the composition of the body it self 4 That all the Sensible Qualities are real bodies resulting out of several mixtures of Rarity and Density 5 Why the Senses are only Five in number with a conclusion of all the former doctrine concerning them 1. Monsir des Cartes his opinion touching Sensation 2. The Authors opinion touching sensation 3. Reasons to perswade the Authors opinion 4. That Vital Spirits are the immediate instruments of Sensation by conveying sensible qualities to the brain 5. How found is convey'd to the brain by vital spirits 6. How colours are convey'd to the brain by Vital Spirits 7. Reasons against Monsir des Cartes his opinion 8. That the symptome of the Palsie do no way confirm Monsir des Cartes his opinion 9. That Mâ—asir des Cartes his opinion cannot give a good account how things are conserv'd in the Memory 1. How things are conserv'd in the Memory 2. How things conserv'd in the Memory are brought back into the Phantasie 3. A Confirmation of the former doctrine 4. How things renew'd in the fantasie return with the same circumstances they had at first 5 How the memory of things past is lost or confounded and how it is repair'd again 1. Of what matter the brrain is composed 2. What is voluntary motion 3. What those powers are which are called Natural Faculties 4. How the Attractive and Secretive faculties work 5. Concerning the concoctive faculty 6. Concerning the Retentive and Expulsive faculties 7. Concerning expulsion made by Physick 9. How the brain is moved to work Voluntary motion 9. Why pleasing objects dilate the spirits and displeasing ones contract them 10. Concerning the Five Senses of what Use and End they are 1. That 〈◊〉 Luc dum is the seat of the fansie 2. What causes us to remember not only the object it self but also that we have thought of it before 3. How the motions of the fantasie are derived to the heart 4. Of Pain and Pleasure 5. Of Passion 6. Of several Pulses caused by Passion 7. Of several other effects caused naturally in the body by passions 8. Of the Diaphragma 9. Concerning pain and pleasure caused by the memory of things past 10. How so small bodies as atomes are can cause so great motions in the heart How the vital spirits sent from thebrain run to the intended part of the body without mistake 1. How men are blinded by passion 1. The order and connexion of the subsequent Chapters 2. From whence proceeds the doubting of beasts 3. Concerning the invention of Foxes and other beast 4. Of Foxes that catch hens by lying under their roost and by gazing upon them 5. From whence proceeds the Foxes invention to rid himself of Flea 6. An explication of two other inventions of Foxes 7. Concerning Montagues argument to prove that Dogs make syllogisms 8. A declaration how some tricks are perform'd by Foxes which seem to argue discourse 9. Of the Jaccatrays invention in calling beasts to himself 10. Of the Jaccils designe in serviâ—g the Lion 11. Of several intentions of Fishes 12 A discovery of divers things done by Hares which seem to argue discourse 13. Of a Fox reported to have weighâ— a Goose before he would venture with it over a River and of fabulous stories in common 14. Of the several Cryings and Tones of Beasts with a refutation of those Authors who maintain them to have compleat Languages 1. How Hawks and other creatures are taught to do what they are brought up to 2. Of the Baboon that plaid on a Guittar 3 Of the teaching of Elephants and other beasts to do divers tricks 4. Of the orderly â—ain of actions perrformd by 〈◊〉 in breeding their young ones 1. Why beasts are afrad of men 2. How some qualities caus'd at first by chance in beasts may pass by generation to the whole off-spring 3. How the parents fantasy oftentimes works strange
by great noises 4. That solid bodies may convey the motion of the air or sound to the Organe of hearing 5. Where the motion is interrupted there is no sound 6. That not only the motion of the air but all other motions coming to our ears make sound 7. How one sense may supply the want of another 8. Of one who could discern sounds of words with his eyes 9. Divers reasons to prove sound to be nothing else but a motion of some real body CHAP XXIX Of Sight and Colours 1. That colours are nothing but light mingled with darkness or the disposition of a bodies superficies apt to reflect light so mingled 2. Concerning the disposition of those bodies which produce white or black colours 3. The former doctrine confirmed by Aristotles authority reason and experience 4. How the diversity of colours do follow out of various degrees of rarity and density 5. Why some bodies are diaphanous others opacous 6. The former doctrine of colours confirmed by the generation of white and black in bodies CHAP. XXX Of luminous or apparent Colours 1. Apparitions of colours through a prism or trianglar glass are of two sorts 2. The several parts of the object make several angles at their entrance into the prism 3. The reason why sometimes the same object appears through the prism in two places and in one place more lively in the other place more dim 4. The reason of the various 〈◊〉 louâ— that appear in looking thâ—rough a prism 5. The reason why the prism in one position may make the colours appear quite contrary to what they did when it was in another position 6. The reason of the various colours in general by pure light passing through a prism 7. Upon what side every colour appears that is made by pure light passing through a prism CHAP. XXXI The causes of certain appearances in luminous Colours with a conclusion of the discourse touching the Senses and the Sensible Qualities 1. The reason of each several colour in particular caused by light passing through a prism 2. A difficult problem resolved touching the Prism 3. Of the rainbow and how by the colour of any body we may know the composition of the body it self 4. That all the sensible qualities are real bodies resulting out of several mixtures of rarity and density 5. Why the senses are onely five in number with a conclusion of all the former doctrine concerning them CHAP. XXXII Of Sensation or the motion wherby sense is properly exercised 1. Monsieur des Cartes his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. The Authours opinion touching sensation 3. Reasons to perswade the Authours opinion 4. That vital spirits are the immediate instruments of sensation by conveying sensible qualities to the brain 5. How sound is convey'd to the brain by vital spirits 6. How colours are convey'd to the brain by vital spirits 7. Reasons against Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 8. That the symptomes of the palsy do no way confirm Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 9. That Monsieur des Cartes his opinion cannot give a good account how things are conserv'd in the memory CHAP. XXXIII Of Memosy 1. How things are conserv'd in the memory 2. How things conserv'd in the memory are brought back into the phantasie 3. A confirmation of the former doctrine 4. How things renew'd in the phantasie return with the same circumstances that they had at first 5. How the memory of things past is lost or confounded and â—en it is repaired again CHAP. XXXIV Of Voluntary motion Natural faculties and Passions 1. Of what matter the brain is composed 2. What is voluntary motion 3. What those powers are which are called natural faculties 4. How the attractive and secretive faculties work 5. Concerning the concoctive faculty 6. Concerning the retentive and expulsive faculties 7. Concerning expulsion made by Physick 8. How the brain is moved to work voluntary motion 9. Why pleasing objects do dilate the spirits and displeasing ones contract them 10. Concerning the five senses for what use and end they are CHAP. XXXV Of the material instrument of Knowledge and Passion of the several effects of passion of pain and pleasure and how the vital spirits are sent from the brain into the intended parts of the body without mistaking their way 1. That Septum Lucidum is the seat of the phansie 2. What causes us to remember not only the object it self but also that we have thought of it before 3. How the motions of the phantasie are derived to the heart 4. Of pain and pleasure 5. Of Passion 6. Of several pulses caused by passions 7. Of several other effects caused naturally in the body by passions 8. Of the Diaphragma 9. Concerning pain and pleasure caused by the memory of things past 10. How so small bodies as atomes are can cause so great motions in the heart 11. How the vital spirits sent from the brain do run to the intended part of the body without mistake 12. How men are blinded by passion CHAP. XXXVI Of some actions of Beasts that seem to be formal acts of reason as doubting resolving inventing 1. The order and connexion of the subsequent Chapters 2. From whence proceeds the doubting of beasts 3. Concerning the invention of Foxes and other beasts 4. Of Foxes that catch Hens by lying under their roost and by gazing upon them 5. From whence proceeds the foxes intention to rid himself of fleas 6. An explication of two other inventions of Foxes 7. Concerning Montagu's argument to prove that Dogs make Syllogismes 8. A declaration how some tricks are performedly Foxes which which seem to argue discourse 9. Of the Jaccatray's invention in calling Beasts to himself 10. Of the Jaccals design in serving the Lion 11. Of several inventions of fishes 12. A discovery of divers thing done by Hares which seem to argue discourse 13. Of a Fox reported to have weighed a Goose before he would venture with it over a River and of Fabulous stories in common 14. Of the several cryings and tones of beasts with a refutation of those Authors who maintain them to have compleat languages CHAP. XXXVII Of the Docility of some irrational Animals and of certain continuate actions of a long tract of time so orderly performed by them that they seem to argue knowledge in them 1. How Hawks and other creatures are taught to do what they are brought up to 2. Of the Baboon that played on a Guittar 3. Of the teaching of Elephants other beasts to do divers tricks 4. Of the orderly train of actions performed by beasts in breeding their young ones CHAP. XXXVIII Of Prescience of future events Providences the knowing of things never seen before and such other actions observed in some living Creatures which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself 1. Why Beasts are afraid of men 2. How some qualities caused at first by change in beasts may pass by generation to the whole off spring 3. How the Parents phantasie
long in the state it is in she changes all substances from one into another And by reiterated revolutions makes in time every thing of every thing As when of mud she makes Tadpoles and Frogs of them and afterwards mud again of the Frog or when she runs a like progress from Earth to Worms and from them to Flies and the like so changing one Animal into such another as in the next precedent step the matter in those circumstances is capable of being changed into or rather to say better must necessarily be changed into To confirm this by experience I have been assured by one who was very exact in noting such things that he once observ'd in Spain in the Spring season how a stick lying in a moist place grew in tract of time to be most of it a rotten durty matter and that at the dirty end of the stick there began a rude head to be form'd of it by little and little and after a while some little legs began to discover themselves near this unpolish'd head which daily grew more and more distinctly shaped And then for a pretty while for it was in a place where he had the conveniency to observe daily the progress of it and no body came near to stir it in the whole course of it he could discern where it ceas'd to be a body of a living creature and where it began to be dead stick or dirt all in one continuate quantity or body But every day the body grew longer and longer and more legs appear'd till at length when he saw the Animal almost finish'd and near separating it self from the rest of the stick he stay'd then by it and saw it creep away in a Caterpillar leaving the stick and dirst as much wanting of its first length as the worms body took up Peradventure the greatest part of such creatures makes their way by such steps into the world But to be able to observe their progress thus distinctly as this Gentleman did happens not frequently Therfore to satisfie our selves herein it were well we made our remarks in some creatures that might be continually in our power to observe in them the course of nature every day and hour Sir John Heydon the Lieutenant of his Majesties Ordnance that generous and knowing Gentleman and consummate Souldier both in Theory and Practice was the first that instructed me how to do this by means of a furnace so made as to imitate the warmth of a sitting Hen. In which you may lay several eggs to hatch and by breaking them at several ages you may distinctly observe every hourly mutation in them if you please The first will be that on one side you shall find a great resplendent clearness in the white After a while a little spot of red matter like blood will appear in the midst of that clearness fast'ned to the yolk which will have a motion of opening and shutting so as somtimes you will see it and straight again it will vanish from your sight and indeed at first it is so little that you cannot see it but by the motion of it for at every pulse as it opens you may see it and immediately again it shuts in such sort as it is not to be discerned From this red speck after a while there will stream out a number of little almost imperceptible red veins At the end of some of which in time there will be gathered together a knot of matter which by little and little will take the form of a head and you will ere long begin to discern eyes and a beak in it All this while the first read spot of blood grows bigger and solider till at length it becomes a fleshy substance and by its figure may easily be discern'd to be the heart which as yet hath no other inclosure but the substance of the egg But by little and little the rest of the body of an Animal is framed out of those red veins which stream out all about from the heart And in process of time that body encloses the heart within it by the chest which grows over on both sides and in the end meets and closes it self fast together After which this little creature soon fills the shell by converting into several parts of it self all the substance of the egg And then growing weary of so straight a habitation it breaks prison and comes out a perfectly formed Chicken In like manner in other creatures which in latine are cal'd Vivipera because their young ones are quick in their mothers Womb we have by the relation of that learned and exact searcher into nature Dr. Harvy that the seed of the male after his accoupling with the female doth not remain in her womb in any sensible bulk but as it seems evaporates and incorporates it self either into the body of the Womb or rather into some more interior part as into the seminary vessels Which being a solid substance much resembling the nature of the Females seed is likely to suck up by the mediation of the Females seed the Male seed incorporated with it and by incorporation turn'd as it were into a vapour in such sort as we have formerly explicated how the body of a Scorpion or Viper draws the poyson out of the wound And after a certain time Dr. Harvy noted the space of six weeks or two moneths in Does or Hindes these seeds distill again into the Womb and by little and little clarifie in the midst and a little red speck appears in the cencer of the bright clearness as we said before of the egg But we should be too blame to leave our Reader without clearing that difficulty which cannot chuse but have sprung up in his thoughts by occasion of the relations we made at the entrance into this point concerning the Cat whose kitlings were half with tails and half without and the womans daughters at Argiers that had as well as their mother excresences upon their left thumbs imitating another lesser thumb and the like effects whenever they happen which they do frequently enough Let him therefore remember how we have determin'd that generation is made of the blood which being dispersed into all the parts of the body to irrigate every one of them and convey fitting spirits into them from their source or shop where they are forged so much of it as is superabundant to the nourishing of those parts is sent back again to the heart to recover the warmth and spirits it hath lost by so long a journey By which perpetual course of a continued circulation 't is evident that the blood in running thus through all the parts of the body must needs receive some particular concoction or impression from every one of them And by consequence if there be any specifical vertue in one part which is not in another then the blood returning from thence must be endued with the vertue of that part And the purest part of this bloud being
extracted like a quintessence out of the whole mass is reser'd in convenient receptacles or vessels till there be use of it and is the matter or seed of which a new Animal is to be made in whom will appear the effect of all the specifical virtues drawn by the bloud in its iterated courses by its circular motion through all the several parts of the parents body Whence it follows that if any part be wanting in the body wherof this seed is made or be superabundant in it whose virtue is not in the rest of the body the vertue of that part cannot be in the bloud or will be too strong in the bloud and by consequence it cannot be at all or it will be too much in the seed And the effect proceeding from the seed that is the young Animal will come into the world savouring of that origine unless the Mother's seed supply or temper what the Father 's was defective or superabundant in or contrariwise the Father's correct the errours of the Mother's But peradventure the Reader will tell us that such a specifical virtue cannot be gotten by concoction of the blood or by any petended impression in it unless some little particles of the nourished part remain in the blood and return back with it according to that maxim of Geber Quod non ingreditur non immutat no body can change another unless it enter into it and mixing it self with it become one with it And that so in effect by this explication we fall back into the opinion which we rejected To this I answer that the difference is very great between that opinion and ours as will appear evidently if you observe the two following assertions of theirs First they affirm that a living creature is made mâ—erly by the assembling together of similar parts which were hidden in those bodies from whence they are extracted in generation wheras we say that bloud coming to a part to irrigate it is by its passage through it and some little stay in it and by its frequent returns thither at length transmuted into the nature of that part and therby the specifical vertues of every part grow greater and are more diffused and extended Secondly they say that the Embryon is actually formed in the seed though in such little parts as it cannot be discerned till each part have enlarged and increased it self by drawing to it from the circumstant bodies more substance of their own nature But we say that there is one Homogenal substance made of the blood which hath been in all parts of the body and this is the seed which contains not in it any figure of the Animal from which it is refined or of the Animal into which it hath a capacity to be turned by the addition of other substances though it have in it the vertues of all the parts it hath often run through By which term of specifike vertues I hope we have said enough in sundry places of this discourse to keep men from conceiving that we mean any such inconceivable quality as modern Philosophers too frequently talk of when they know not what they say or think nor can give any account of But that it is such degrees and numbers of rare and dense parts mingled together as constitute a mixed body of such a temper and nature which degrees and proportions of rare and dense parts and their mixture together and incorporating into one Homogeneal substance is the effect resulting from the operations of the exteriour agent that cuts imbibes kneads and boyls it to such a temper Which exteriour agent in this case is each several part of the Animals body that this juice or blood runs through and that hath a particular temper belonging to it resulting out of such a proportion of rare and dense parts as we have even now spoken of and can no more be with-held from communicating its temper to the bloud that first soaks into it and soon after drains away again from it according as other succeeding parts of bloud drive it on then a mineral channel can chuse but communicate its vertue to a stream of water that runs through it and is continually grating off some of the substance of the Mineral earth and dissolving it into it self But to go on with our intended discourse The seed thus imbued with the specifical vertues of all the several parts of the parents body meeting in a fit receptacle the other parents seed and being there duly concocted becomes first a heart Which heart in this tender beginning of a new Animal contains the several virtues of all the parts that afterwards will grow out of it and be in the future Animal in the same manner as the heart of a complete Animal contains in it the specificke virtues of all the several parts of its own body by reason of the bloods continual resorting to it in a circle from all parts of its body and its being nourished by that juice to supply the continual consumption which the extreme heat of it must needs continually occasion in its own substance wherby the heart becoms in a manner the Compendium or abridgment of the whole Animal Now this heart in the growing Embryon being of the nature of fire as on the one side it streams out its hot parts so on the other it sucks oyl or fewel to nourish it self out of the adjacent moist parts which matter aggregated to it being sent abroad together with the other hot parts that steam from it both of them together stay and settle as soon as they are out of the reach of that violent heat that would not permit them to thicken or rest And there they grow into such a substance as is capable to be made of such a mixture and are linked to the heart by some of those strings that steam out from it for those steams likewise harden as we shew'd more particularly when we discours'd of the tender stalks of plants and in a word this becoms some other part of the Animal Which thus encreases by order one part being made after another till the whole living creature be completely framed So that now you see how mainly their opinion differs from ours since they say that there is actually in the seed a complete living creature for what else is a living creature but bones in such parts nerves in such others bloud and humours contain'd in such and such places all as in a living creature All which they say But we make the seed to be nothing else but one mixed body of one homogeneal nature throughout consisting of such a multiplicity of rare and dense parts so ballanced and proportioned in number and magnitude of those parts which are evenly shuffled and alike mingled in every little parcel of the whole substance in such sort that the operation of nature upon this seed may in a long time and with a due process bring out such figures situation and qualities as fluidity consisence
driness and the like which by much mixstion and consequent alteration may in the end become such as constitute a living creature of such a kind And thus it appears that although other substances and liquors and steams are from time to time mingled with the seed and then with the heart and afterwards with the other parts as they grow on and encrease yet the main virtue of the ensuing Animal is first in the seed and afterwards in the heart Whence the reason is evident why both defects and excrescences pass somtimes from the parents to the children to wit when nothing supplies the defect or corrects the exorbitancy Rather after this which we have said the difficulty will appear greater in that such accidents are not always hereditary from the parents but happen only now and then some rare times But the same grounds we have laid wil likewise solve this objection For seeing that the heart of the Animal from whence the seed receives its proper nature as we have declared is impregnated with the specifick virtue of each several part of the body it cannot be doubted but that the heart will supply for any defect hapned in another part after it hath been imbued with that virtue and is grown to a firmness and vigorous consistence with that virtue moulded and deeply imbibed into the very substance of it And although the heart should be tincted from its first origine with an undue virtue from some part as it seems to have been in the mother of those daughters that had two thumbs upon one hand yet it is not necessary that all the off-spring of that parent should be formed after that model for the other partners seed may be more efficacious and predominant in the geniture over the faulty seed of the other parent and then it will supply for and correct the others deviation from the general rule of nature Which seems to be the cause of that womans male children for in them the fathers seed being strongest all their fingers imitated the regularity of their Fathers wheras the daughters whose sex implies that the fathers seed was less active carried upon some of theirs the resemblance of their mothers irregularity And in confirmation of this doctrine we daily see that the Children of Parents who have any of their noble parts much and long distempred wherby there must be a great distemper in the bloud which is made and concocted by their assistance seldom fail of having strong inclinations to the distempers and diseases that either of their parents were violently subject to Scarce any Father or Mother dyes of the Consumption of the Lungs but their children inherit that disease in some measure the like is of the Stone the like of the Gout the like of diseases of the brain and of sundry others when they infested the parents with any notable eminency For the bloud coming continually to the heart from such ill-affected parts by its circulation through the whole body must needs in process of time alter and change the temper of the heart and then both the heart gives a tainted impression to the blood that must be boyl'd into seed and the parts themselvs communicate their debilites and distempers to it so that it is no wonder if the seed partake of such depraved qualities since it is a maxime among Physicians that subsequent concoctions can never amend or repair the faults of the precedent ones Having waded thus far into this matter and all experience agreeing that the whole Animal is not formed at once I conceive there can be no great difficulty in determining what part of it is first generated which we have already said to be the heart but peradventure the Reader may expect some more particular and immediate proof of it 'T is evident that all the motions and changes we have observ'd in the Egg and in the Doe proceed from heat and t is as certain that heat is greatest in the centre of it from whence it disperses it self to less and less It must then necessarily follow that the part in which heat most abounds and which is the interiour fountain of it from whence as from a stock of their own all the other parts derive theirs must be formed first and the others successively after it according as they partake more or less of this heat which is the Architect that moulds and frames them all Undoubtedly this can be none other but the heart whose motion and manner of working evidently appears in the twinckling of the first red spot which is the first change in the Egg and in the first matter of other living creatures Yet I do not intend to say that the heart is perfectly framed and compleatly made up with all its parts and instruments before any other part be begun to be made but only the most vertuous part and as it were the marrow of it which servs as a shop or hot forge to mold spirits in from whence they are dispers'd abroad to form and nourish other parts that stand in need of them to that effect The shootings or little red strings that stream out from it must surely be arteries through which the bloud issuing from the heart and there made and imbued with the nature of the seed runs till encountering with fit matter it engrosses it self into brain liver lights c. From the brain chiefly grows the marrow and by consequent the bones containing it which seem to be originally but the outward part of the marrow baked and hardned into a strong crust by the great heat that is kept in as also the sinews which are the next principal bodies of strength after the bones The marrow being very hot dries the bones and yet with its actual moisture it humects and nourishes them too in some sort The spirits that are sent from the brain do the like to the sinews And lastly the arteries and veins by their bloud cherish and bedew the flesh And thus the whole living creature is begun framed and made up CHAP. XXV How a Plant or Animal câ—mes to that figure it hath BUt before we go any further and search into the operations of this Animal a wonderful effect calls our consideration to it which is how a Plant or Animal comes by the figure it hath both in the whole and in every part of it Aristotle after he had beaten his thoughts as far as he could upon this question pronounced that this effect could not possibly be wrought by the virtue of the first qualities but that it sprung from a more divine origine And most of the contemplatours of Nature since him seem to agree that no cause can be render'd of it but that it is to be refer'd merely to the specifical nature of the thing Neither do we intend to derogate from either of these causes since both Divine Providence is eminently shown in contriving all circumstances necessary for this work and likewise the first temperament that is
out into an extasie of admiration and hymns of praise as great Galen did upon the like occasion when we reverently consider the infinite Wisedome and deep far-looking Providence of the all-seeing Creatour and Orderer of the World in so punctually adopting such a multitude and swarm of causes to produce by so long a progress so wonderful an effect in the whole course of which if any one the very least of them all went never so little awry the whole fabrick would be discomposed and changed from the nature it is design'd to Out of our short survey of which answerable to our weak talents and slender experience I perswade mv self it appears evident enough that to effect this work of generation there needs not be supposed a forming virtue or Vis formatrix of an anknown power and operation as those that consider things suddenly and but in gross use to put Yet in discourse for conveniency and shortness of expression we shall not quite banish that term from all commerce with us so that what we mean by it be rightly understood which is the complex assemblement or chain of all the causes that concur to produce this effect as they are set on foot to this end by the great Architect and Moderatour of them God Almighty whose instrument Nature is that is the same thing or rather the same things so order'd as we have declared but express'd and compriz'd under another name CHAP. XXVI How motion begins in Living Creatures And of the motion of the Heart circulation of the Bloud Nutrition Augmentation and Corruption or Death BUt we must not take our leave of this subject til we have examin'd how motion begins in living things as well Plants as Sensative creatures We can readily pitch upon the part we are to make our observations in for retriving the origine of this primary motion for having concluded that the roots of Plants and the hearts of Animals are the parts of them which are first made and from which the forming virtue is derived to all the rest it were unreasonable to seek for their first motion any where else But in what manner and by what means doth it begin there For roots the difficulty is not great for the moysture of the earth pressing upon the seed and soaking into it the hot parts of it which were imprison'd in cold and dry ones are therby stir'd up and set on work then they mingling themselves with that moysture ferment and distend the whole seed til making it open and break the skin more juice comes in which imcorporating it self with the heat those hot and now moyst parts will not be contain'd in so narrow a room as at the first but strugling to get out on all sides and striving to enlarge themselvs they thrust forth little parts Which if they stay in the earth grow white and make the root but those which ascend and make their way into the air being less compressed and more full of heat and moysture turn green and as fast as they grow up new moysture coming to the root is sent up through the pores of it and this fails not till the heat of the root it self fails For it being the nature of heat to rarifie and elevate there must of necessity be caus'd in the earth a kind of sucking in of moysture into the root from the next parts to it to fill those capacities which the dilating heat hath made that else would be empty and to supply the rooms of those which the heat continually sends upwards for the moysture of the root hath a continuity with that in the earth and therfore they adhere together as in a Pump or rather as in filtration and follow one another when any of them are in motion and still the next must needs come in and fill the room where it finds an empty space immediate to it The like of which happens to the Air when we breath for our lungs being like a Bladder when we open them the air must needs come in to fill that capacity which else would be empty and when we shut them again as in a pair of Bellows we put it out This may suffice concerning the primary motion of roots but in that of the heart we shall find the matter not altogether so plain Monsieur des Cartes following herein the steps of the learned and ingenuous Dr. Harvey who hath invented and teaches that curious and excellent Doctrine of the Cerculation of the Bloud as indeed what secret of nature can be hidden from so sharp a wit when he applyes himself to penetrate into the bottome of it explicates the matter much after this sort That the heart within the substance of it is like a hollow Cavern in whose bottome were an hot stone on which should drop as much liquor as the fiery stone could blow into smoke and this smoke or steam should be more then the Cave could contain wherfore it must break out which to do it presses on all sides to get an issue or door to let it out It finds of two sorts but only one kind of them will serve it for this purpose for the one sort of these doors opens inwards the other outwards which is the cause that the more it strives to get out the faster it shuts the doors of the first kind but by the same means it beats back the other doors and so gets out Now when it is gone quite out of this Cavern and consequently leaves it to its natural disposition whereas before it violently stretched it out and by doing so kept close the doors that open inwards then all the parts of it begin to slacken and those Doors give way to new liquor to drop in anew which the heat in the bottome of the heart rarifies again in-into smoke as before And thus he conceives the motion of the heart to be made taking the substance of it to be as I may say like to limber Leather which upon the feeling of it with bloud and steam opens and dilates it self and at the going of it out it shrinks together like a bladder But I doubt this Explication will not go through the difficulty For first both Galen and Dr. Harvey shew that as soon as the bloud is come into the heart it contracts it self which agrees not with Monsir des Cartes his supposition for in his doctrine there appears no cause why it should contract it self when it is full but contrariwise it should go on dilating it self till enough of the bloud which drops into the heart were converted into steam to force the doors open that so it may gain an issue thence and a passage into the body Next Monsir des Cartes supposes that the substance of the heart is like a bladder which hath no motion of it self but opens and shuts according as what is within it stretches it out or permits it to shrink and fall together again Wheras Dr. Harvey proves
that when it is full it compresses itself by a quick and strong motion to expel that which is in it and that when it is empty it returns to its natural dilatation figure and situation by the ceasing of that agents working which caused its motion Wherby it appears to be of such a fibrous substance as hath a proper motion of its own Thirdly I see not how this motion can be proportional For the heart must needs open and be dilated much faster then it can be shut and shrunk together there being no cause put to shut and bring it to its utmost period of shrinking other then the going out of the vapour wherby it becomes empty which vapour not being forced by any thing but its own inclination may peradventure at first when there is abundance of it swell and stretch the heart forcibly out but after the first impulse and breach of some part of it out of the Cavern that enclosed it there is nothing to drive out the rest which must therfore steam very leasurely out Fourthly what should hinder the blood from coming in before the heart be quite-empty and shrunk to its lowest pitch For as soon as the vapour yeelds within new blood may fall in from without and so keep the heart continually dilated without ever suffering it to be perfectly and compleatly shut Fifthly the heart of a Viper layd upon a plate in a warm place will beat four and twenty houres and much longer if it be carefully taken out of its body and the weather warm and moyst and it is clear that this is without succession of blood to cause the pulses of it Likewise the several members of living creatures will stir for sometime after they are parted from their bodies and in them we can suspect no such cause of motion Sixthly Mounsir des Cartes his opinion the heart should be hardest when it is fullest and the eruption of the steam out of it should be strongest at the beginning wheras experience shews that it is softest when it is at the point of being full and hardest when it is at the point of being empty and the motion strongest towards the end Seventhly in Mounsir des Cartes his way there is no agent or force strong enough to make blood gush out of the heart For if it be the steam only that opens the doors nothing but it will go out and the blood will still remain behind since it lies lower then the steam and further from the issue that lets it out but Dr. Harvey findes by experience and teaches how to make this experience that when a wound is made in the heart blood will gush out by spurts at every shooting of the heart And lastly if Mounsir des Cartes his supposition were true the arteries would receive nothing but steams wheras it is evident that the chief filler of them is blood Therfore we must enquire after another cause of this primary motion of a sensitive creature in the beatings of its heart Wherin we shall not be obliged to look far for seeing we find this motion and these pulsations in the heart when it is separated from the body we may boldly and safely conclude that it must of necessity be caused by somthing that is within the heart it self And what can that be else but heat or spirits imprison'd in a tough viscous bloud which it cannot so presently break through to get out and yet can stir within it and lift it up The like of which motion may be observ'd in the heaving up and sinking down again of lose mould thrown into a pit intoe which much ordure hath been emptied The same cause of h at in the earth makes mountains and sands to be cast up in the very sea So in frying when the pan is full of meat the bubbles rise and fall at the edges Treacle and such strong compounded substances whiles they ferment lift themselvs up and sink down again after the same manner as the Vipers heart doth as also do the bubbles of Barm and most of Wine And short ends of Lute strings baked in a juicy pie will at the opening of it move in such sort as they who are ignorant of the feat will think there are Magots in it and a hot loaf in which quick-silver is enclosed will not only move thus but will also leap about and skip from one place to another like the head or limb of an Animal very full of spirits newly cut off from its whole body And that this is the true cause of the hearts motion appears evidently First because this virtue of moving is in every part of the heart as you will plainly see if you cut out into several pieces a heart that conservs its motion long after it is out of the Animals belly for every piece will move as Dr. Harvey assures us by experience and I my self have often seen upon occasion of making the great antidote in which Vipers hearts is a principal ingredient Secondly the same is seen in the auricles and the rest of the heart whose motions are several though so near together that they can hardly be distinguished Thirdly Dr. Harvey seems to affirm that the blood which is in the ears of the heart hath such a motion of it self precedent to the motion of the ears it is in and that this virtue remains in it for a little space after the ears are dead Fourthly in touching a heart which had newly left moving with his finger weted with warm spittle it began to move again as testifying that heat and moisture made this motion Fifthly if you touch the Vipers heart over with vineger with spirit of wine with sharp white-wine or with any piercing liquor it presently dyes for the acuteness of such substances pierces through the viscous bloud and makes way for the heat to get out But this first mover of an Animal must have somthing from without to stir it up else the heat would lie in it as if it were dead and in time would become absolutely so In Eggs you see this exteriour mover in the warmth of the Hens hatching them And in Embryons it is the warmth of the mothers womb But when in either of them the heart is completely form'd and enclosed in the breast much heat is likewise enclosed there in all the parts near about the heart partly made by the heart it self and partly caused by the outward heat which helped also to make that in the heart and then although the warmth of the hen or of the mothers womb forsake the heart yet this stirs up the native heat within the heart and keeps it in motion and makes it feed still upon new fewel as fast as that which it works upon decayes But to express more particularly how this motion is effected We are to note that the heart hath in its ventrickles three sorts of fibers The first go long ways or are straight ones on the sides of the ventricles
to the sides of the ventricles and consequently new bloud drops in So that in conclusion we see the motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by the blood and not from the force of the vapour as Monsieur des Cartes supposes This motion of the heart drives the blood which is warm'd and spiritualiz'd by being boyl'd in this furnace through due passages into the arteries whence it runs into the veins and is a main cause of making and nourishing other parts as the Liver the Lungs the Brains and whatsoever else depends of those veins and arteries through which the bloud goes Which being ever freshly heated and receiving the tincture of the hearts nature by passing through the heart wherever it stayes and curdles it grows into a substance of a nature conformable to the heart though every one of such substances be of exceeding different conditions in themselves the very grossest excrements not being excluded from some participation of that nature But if you desire to follow the blood all along every step in its progress from the heart round about the body till it return back again to its center Dr. Harvey who most acutely teaches this doctrine must be your guide He will shew you how it issues from the heart by the Arteries from whence it goes on warming the flesh til it arrive to some of the extremities of the body and against it is grown so cool by long absence from the fountain of its heart and by evaporating its own stock of spirits without any new supply that it hath need of being warmed anew it findes it self return'd back again to the Heart and is there heated again which return is made by the Veins as its going forwards is perform'd only by the Arteries And were it not for this continual circulation of the blood and this new heating it in its proper caldron the Heart it could not be avoided but that the extreme parts of the body would soon grow cold and die For flesh being of it self of a cold nature as is apparent in dead flesh and being kept warm meerly by the blood that bedews it and the bloud likewise being of a nature that soon grows cold and congeals unless it be preserv'd in due temper by actual heat working upon it how can we imagine that they two singly without any other assistance should keep one another warm especially in those parts that are far distant from the heart by only being together Surely we must allow the blood which is a substance fit for motion to have recourse back to the heart where only it can be supply'd with new heat and spirits and from thence be driven out again by its pulses or strokes which are its shuttings And as fast as it flies out like a reeking thick steam which rises from perfumed water falling upon a heated pan that which is next before it must flie yet further on to make way for it and newt arterial blood stil issuing forth at every pulse it must still drive on what issued thence the last precedent pulse and that part must press on what is next before it And thus it fares with the whole mass of blood which having no other course but in the body must at length run round and by new vessels which are the veins return back to the place from whence it issued first and by that time it comes thither it is grown cool and thick needs a vigorous restauration of spirits and a new rarifying that then it may warm the flesh it passes again through without which it would suddenly grow stone cold As is manifest if by tying or cutting the arteries you intercept the blood which is to nourish any part for then that part grows presently cold and benum'd But referring the particulars of this doctrine to Dr. Harvey who hath both invented and perfected it our task in hand calls upon us to declare in common the residue of motions that all Living Creatures agree in How Generation is perform'd we have determin'd in the past discourse Our next consideration then ought to be of Nutrition and Augmentation Between which there is very little difference in the nature of their actions and the difference of their names is grounded more upon the different result in the period of them then upon the thing it self as will by and by appear Thus then is the progress of this matter As soon as a living creature is formed it endeavours straight to augment it self and employs it self only about that the parts of it being yet too young and tender to perform the other functions which nature hath produced them for That is to say the Living Creature at its first production is in such a state and condition that it is able to do nothing else but by means of the great heat in it to turn into its own substance the abundance of moysture that overflows it They who are curious in this matter tell us that the performance of this work consists in five actions which they call Attraction Adhesion Concoction Assimulation and Unition The nature of Atraction we have already declared when we explicated how the heart and the root sends juice into the other parts of the Animal or Plant for they abounding in themselves with inward heat and besides that much other circumstant heat working likewise upon them it cannot be otherwise but that they must needs suck and draw into them the moisture that is about them As for Adhesion the nature of that is likewise explicated when we shew'd how such parts as are moist but especially aerial or oily ones such as are made by the operation of a soft and continual heat are catching and easily stick to any body they happen to touch and how a little part of moysture between two dry parts joyns them together Upon which occasion it is to be noted that parts of the same kind joyn best together and therfore the powder of glass is used to ciment broken glass withal as we have touch'd somwhere above and the powder of marble to ciment marble with and so of other bodies In like manner Alchimists find no better expedient to extract a small proportion of silver mixed with a great one of gold then to put more silver to it nor any more effectual way to get out the heart or tincture or spirits of any thing they distil or make an extract of then to infuse its own flegme upon it and to water it with that Now whether the reason of this be that continuity because it is an unity must be firmest between parts that are most conformable to one another and consequently nearest one among themselves or whether it be for some other hidden cause belongs not to this place to discourse but in fine so it is And the adhesion is strongest of such parts as are most conformable to that which needs encrease and nourishment and that is made up by the other three actions Of which
of these streams at the Equator divers Rivolets of Atomes of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atomes incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanatitions joyn'd with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6. A Method for making experiences upon any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by Atomes flowing from both Poles is confirmed by experiments observed in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streams CHAP. XXI Positions drawn out of the former doctrine and confirm'd by experimental proofs 1. The operations of the Loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbu'd with his vertue from another body 4. The vertue of the loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The vertue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the Poles of it than in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kinds and each kind is strongest in that hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree with every part of the other loadstone 8. Concerning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 9. The vertue of the loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the axis 10. The virtue of a loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and the attracted bodies 12. The main Globe of the earth not a loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or climates of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things CHAP. XXII A solution of certain Problems concerning the Loadstone and a short summ of the whole doctrine touching it 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth doth get a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the North or towards the South in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilbert's reason refuted touching a capped loadstone that takes up more iron than one not capped and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly than the stone it self 6. Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authours solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Load stone draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may at one time vary more from the North and at another time lesse 11. The whole doctrine of the load stone summ'd up in short CHAP. XXIII A description of two sorts of Living creatures Plants and Animals and how they are framed in common to perform vital motion 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent 2. Concerning several compositions of mix'd bodies 3. Two sorts of living creatures 4. An engin to express the first sort of living creatures 5. An other engin by which may be express'd the second sort of living creatures 6. The two former enginâ— and some other compâ—risons upplyed express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of living creatures 7. How plants are fram'd 8. How Sensitive creatures are form'd CHAP. XXIV A more particular survey of the generation of Animals in which is discover'd what part of the animal is first generated 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authours opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd 6. That one substance is chang'd into another 7. Concerning the â—atching of Chickens and the generation of other animals 8. From whence it â—ppens that the defi◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—scences of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authours opinion and the former 10. That the heart is iâ—ued with the generalâ— spâ—ific virtues of the whole body 〈◊〉 confirm'd the doctrine of the two former paragraphs 11. That the heart is the first part generated in a living creature CHAP. XXV How a Plant or Animal comes to that Figure it hath 1. That the Figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of the three dimensions caused by the concurrence of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmed by several instances 4. The same doctrine apply'd to Plants 5. The same doctrine declared in leafs of trees 6. The same apply'd to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Authour admits of Vis formatrix CHAP. XXVI How motion begins in Living creatures And of the Motion of the Heart Circulation of the Blood Nutrition Augmentation and corruption or death 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion and growth in Plants 2. Monsieur des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authours opinion concerning the motion of the heart 5. The motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by bloud 6. An objection answer'd against the former doctrine 7. The circulation of the bloud and other effects that follow the motion of the heart 8. Of Nutrition 9. Of Augmentation 10. Of death and sickness CHAP. XXVII Of the motions of Sense and of the Sensible Qualities in gegeral in particular of those which belong to Touch Tast and Smelling 1. The connexion of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2. Of the senses and sensible qualities in general And of the end for which they serve 3. Of the sense of touching and that both it and its qualities are bodies 4. Of the tast and its qualities that they are bodies 5. That the smell and its qualities are real bodies 6. Of the conformity betwixt the two senses of smelling and tasting 7. The reason why the sense of smelling is not so perfect in man as in beasts with a wonderful history of a man who could wind sent as well as any beast CHAP. XXVIII Of the sense of Hearing and of the sensible quality Sound 1. Of the sense of hearing and that sound is purely motion 2. Of divers arts belonging to the sense of hearing all which confirm that sound is nothing but motion 3. The same is confirmed by the effects caused
of necessity be more humid and figurable then that of an ordinary plant and the Artificer which works and moulds it must be more active Wherfore we must suppose that the mass of which an Animal is to be made must be actually liquid and the fire that works upon it must be so powerful that of its own nature it may be able to convert this liquid matter into such breaths and steams as we see use to rise from water when the Sun or fire works upon it Yet if the mass were altogether as liquid as water it would vanish away by heat boyling it and be dried up therfore it must be of such a convenient temper that although in some of its parts it be fluid and apt to run yet by others it must be held together as we see that unctuous things for the most part are which will swell by heat but not fly away So then if we imagine a great heat to be imprison'd in such a liquor and that it seeks by boyling to break out but that the solidness and viscousness of the substance will not permit it to evaporate it cannot chuse but comport it self in some such sort as we see butter or oyl in a frying-pan over the fire when it rises in bubbles but much more efficaciously For their body is not strong enough to keep in the heat and therfore those bubbles fall again wheras if it were those bubbles would rise higher and higher and stretch themselvs longer and longer as when the Soap-boylers boyl a strong unctuous lye into Soap and every one of them would be as it were a little brook wherof the channel would be the enclosing substance and the inward smoak that extends it might be compared to the water of it as when a glass is blown out by fire and air into a long figure Now we may remember how we have said where we treated of the Production and Resolution of Mixed bodies that there are two sorts of liquid substantial parts which by the operation of fire are sent out of the body it works upon the watery and the oyly parts For thouh there appear somtimes some very subtile and Ethereal parts of a third kind wich are the Aquae Ardentes or borning spirits yet in such a close distilling of circulation as this is they are not sever'd by themselvs but accompany the rest and especially the watery parts which are of a nature that the rising Ethereal spirits easily mingle with and extend themselves in it wherby the water becomes more efficacious and the spiritt less fugitive Of these liquid parts which the fire sends away the watry ones are the first as being the easiest to be raised the oyly parts rise more difficultly and therfore come last And in the same manner it happens in this emission of brooks the watry and oyly steams will each of them fly into different reservs and if there arrive to them abundance of their own quality each of them must make a substance of its own nature by by setling in a convenient place and by due concoction Which substance after it is made and confirm'd if more humidity and heat press it will again break forth into other little channels But when the watry and oyly parts are boyl'd away there remain yet behind other more solid and fixed parts and more strongly incorporated with fire then either of these which yet cannot drie up into a fiery salt because a continual accession of humour keeps them always flowing and so they become like a cauldron of boyling fire Which must propagate it self as wide as either of the other since the activity of it must needs be greater then theirs as being the source of motion to them and that there wants not humidity for it to extend it self by And thus you see three roots of three divers plants all in the same plant proceeding by natural resolution from one primitive source Wherof that which is most watry is fittest to fabricate the body and common outside of the triformed plant since water is the most figurable principle in nature and most susceptible of multiplication and by its cold is easiest to be hardned and therfore fittest to resist the injuries of enemy-bodies that may infest it The oily parts are fittest for the continuance and solidity of the plant for we see that viscuosity and oyliness hold together the parts where they abound and they are slowly wasted by fire but conserve and are an aliment to the fire that consumes them The parts of the third kind are fittest for the conservation of heat which though in them it be too violent yet is necessary for working upon other parts and maintaining a due temper in them And thus we have armed our plant with three sorts of rivers or brooks to run through him with as many different streams the one of a gentle balsamike oyle another of streaming fire and the third of a con-natural and cooler water to irrigate and temper him The streams of water as we have said must run through the whole fabrick of this triformed plant and because it is not a simple water but warm in a good degree and as it were a middle substance betwixt water and air by reason of the ardent volatile spirit that is with it 't is of a fit nature to swell as air doth and yet withall to resist violence in a convenient degree as water doth Therfore if from its source nature sends abundance into any one part that part must swell and grow thicker and shorter and so must be contracted that way which nature has order'd it Whence we perceive a means by which nature may draw any part of the outward fabrick which way soever she is pleased by set instruments for such an effect But when there is no motion or but little in these pipes the standing stream that is in a very little though long channel must needs be troubled in its whole body if any one part of it be press'd upon so as to receive therby any impression and therfore whatever is done upon it though at the very furthest end of it makes a commotion and sends an impression up to its very source Which appearing by our former d scourse to be the origine of particular and accasional motion 't is obvious to conceive how it is apt to be moved and wrought by such an impression to set on foot the begining of any motion which by natures providence is convenient for the plant when such an impression is made upon it And thus you see this plant hath the virtue both of sense or feeling that is of being moved and effected by extern objects lightly striking upon it as also of moving it self to or from such an object according as nature shall have ordain'd Which in sum is that This Plant is a Sensitive Creature composed of three sources the Heart the Brain and the Liver whose off-springs are the Arteries the Nervs and the Veins which are fil'd with Vital
from the thick basis of the heart towards the little tip or cone of it the second go cross or round-ways about the ventricles within the heart and the third are transversal or thwart ones Next we are to remember that the heart is fix'd to the body by its base and hangs loose at the cone Now then the fibers being of the nature of such things as will swell and grow thicker by being moisten'd and consequently shrink up in length and grow shorter in proportion to their swelling thicker as you may observe in a loose-wrought hempen rope it must of necessity follow that when the bloud falls into the heart which is of a kind of spungy substance the fibers being therwith moist'ned will presently swell in roundness and shrink in length Next we are to note that there is a double motion in the heart the one of opening which is call'd Diastole the other of shutting which is term'd Systole And although Dr. Harvey seems to allow the opening of the heart to be no motion but rather a relenting from motion nevertheless me thinks 't is manifest that it is not only a compleat motion but in a manner the greater motion of the two though indeed the less sensible because it is perform'd by little and little for in it the heart is drawn by violence from its natural position which must be as it is of all heavy things that by which it approaches most to the center of gravity and such a position we see it gains by the shutting of it Now to declare how both these motions are effected we are to consider how at the end of the Systole the heart is voided and cleansed of all the bloud that was in it whence it follows that the weight of the bloud which is in the auricles pressing upon the valvulas or doors that open inwards makes its way by little and little into the ventricles of the heart where it must necessarily swell the fibers and they being swelled must needs draw the heart into a roundish and capacious figure which the more it is done the more blood comes in and with greater violence The following effect of which must be that the weight of the blood joyn'd to the weight of the heart it self and particularly of the conus or tip which is more solid and heavy in proportion to its quantitity then the rest of the heart must necessarily set the heart into the natural motion of descending according to its gravity which consequently is perform'd by a lively jerk wherby it comes to pass that the tip of our heart as it were springs up towards our breast the bloud is spurted out by other valvulae that open outwards which are aptly disposed to be open'd upon such a motion and convey it to the arteries In the course of which motion we may note how the figure of our heart contributes to its springing up towards our breast for the line of distance between the basis and the tip being longer on that side towards the back then on the other towards the breast it must happen that when the heart shuts and straightens it self and thereby extends it self to its length the tip will but out forwards towards the breast Against this doctrine of the motion and of the Systole and Diastole of the heart it may be objected that beasts hearts do not hang like a mans heart straight downwards but rather horizantally and therfore this motion of gravity cannot have place in them nevertheless we are sure they beat and open and shut regularly Besides if there were no other cause but this of gravity for the motion of a mans heart it would follow that one who were set upon his head or hung by his heels could not have the motion of his heart which posture nevertheless we see men remain in for a pretty while without any extreme prejudice But these difficulties are easily answer'd For first whether beasts hearts lie directly horizontally or whether the basis be fast'ned somwhat higher then the tip reaches and so makes their heart hang inclining downwards still the motion of gravity hath its effect in them As we may perceive in the heart of a viper lying upon a plate and in any other thing that of it self swells up and straight again shrinks down in which we cannot doubt but that the gravity fighting against the heat makes the elevated parts fall as the heat makes them rise And as for the latter 't is evident that men cannot stay long in that posture without violent accidents and in any little while we see the bloud comes into their face and other parts which naturally are situated higher but by this position become lower then the heart and much time is not required to have them quite disorder'd and suffocated the bloud passing through the heart with too much quickness and not receiving due concoction there and falling thence in too great abundance into places that cannot with conveniency entertain it But you will insist and ask Whether in that posture the heart moves or no and how And to speak by guesse in a thing I have not yet made experiences enough to be throughly inform'd in I conceive without any great scruple that it doth move And that it happens thus That the heart hanging somewhat loose must needs tumble over and the tip of it lean downwards some way or other and so lie in part like the heart of a beast though not so conveniently accommodated and then the heat which makes the viscous bloud that is in the substance of the heart to ferment wil not fail of raising it up wherupon the weight of that side of the heart that is lifted up will presently press it down And thus by the alternative operations of these causes the heart will be made to open and shut it self as much as is necessary for admitting and thrusting out that little and disorderly coming bloud which makes its course through it for that little space wherin the man continues in that position Now from these effects wrought in the heart by the moistning of the fibers two other effects proceed One is that the bloud is push'd out of every corner of the heart with an impetuousness or velocity The other is that by this notion the spirits which are in the ventricles of the heart and in the bloud that is even then heated there are more and deeper press'd into the substance of the heart so that you see the heart imbibes fresh vigour and is strengthened with new spirits whiles it seems to reject that which should strengthen it Again two other effects follow this violent ejection of the bloud out of the heart One is that for the present the heart is entirely cleans'd of all remainders of bloud none being permitted to fall back to annoy it The other is that the heart finding it self dry the fibers relent presently into their natural position and extension and the valvulae that open inwards fall flat
in the utmost extremity without sending any due proportion of spirits to the brain till they settle a little and grow more moderate Now when these motions are moderate they immediately send up some abundance of spirits to the brain which if they be in a convenient proportion are by the brain thrust into such nervs as are fit to receive them and swelling them they give motion to the muscles and tendons that are fastned to them and they move the whole body or what part of it is under command of those nervs that are thus fill'd and swell'd with spirits by the brain If the object was conformable to the living creature then the brain sends spirits into such nervs as carry the body to it but if otherwise it causes a motion of aversion or flight from it To the cause of this latter we give the name of Fear and the other that carries one to the pursuit of the object we call Hope Anger or Audacity is mixt of both these for it seeks to avoid an evil by embracing and overcoming it and proceeds out of abundance of spirits Now if the proportion of spirits sent from the heart be too great for the brain it hinders or perverts the due operation both in man and beast All which it will not be amiss to open a little more particularly and first why painful or displeasing objects contract the spirits and grateful ones contrariwise dilate them It is because the good of the heart consists in use that is in heat and moisture and 't is the nature of heat to dilate it self in moisture whereas cold and dry things contract the bodies they work on and such are enemies to the nature of men and beasts And accordingly experience as well as reason teaches us that all objects which be naturally good are hot and moist in due proportion to the creature that is affected and pleas'd with them Now the living creature being composed of the same principles as the world round about him is and the heart being an abridgment of the whole sensible creature and besides full of blood and that very hot it comes to pass that if any of these little extracts of the outward world arrive to the hot blood about the heart it works in this blood such like an effect as we see a drop of water falling into a glass of wine which is presently dispersed into a competent compass of the wine so that any little object must needs make a notable motion in the blood about the heart This motion according to the nature of the object will be either conformable or contrary unless it be so little a one as no effect will follow of it and then 't is of that kind which above we call'd indifferent If the ensuing effect be connatural to the heart there rises a motion of a certain fume about the heart which motion we call Pleasure and it never fails of accompanying all those motions which are good as Joy Love Hope and the like but if the motion be displeasing there is likewise a common sense of a heaviness about the heart which we call Grief and it is common to Sorrow Fear Hate and the like Now 't is manifest by experience that these motions are all different ones and strike against divers of those parts of of our body which encompass the heart out of which striking follows that the spirits sent from the heart affect the brain diversly and are by it convey'd into divers nerves and so set divers members in action Whence follows that certain Members are generally moved upon the motion of such a passion in the heart especially in beasts who have a more determinate course of working than man hath and if somtimes we see variety even in beasts upon knowledge of the circumstances we may easily guess at the causes of that variety The particularities of all which motions we remit Physicians and Anatomists advertising only that the fume of pleasure and the heaviness of grief plainly shew that the first motions participate of Dilatation and the latter of Compression Thus you see how by the senses a living creature becomes judg of what is good what bad for him which operation is perform'd more perfectly in Beasts and especially in those that live in the free air remote from humane conversation for their senses are fresh and untainted as nature made them than in Men. Yet without doubt nature has been as favourable in this particular to men as them were it not that with disorder and excess we corrupt and oppress our senses as appears evidently by the Story we have recorded of John of Leige as also by the ordinary practice of some Hermites in the Deserts who by their taste or smell would presently be inform'd whether the herbs and roots and fruits they met with were good or hurtful for them though they never before had had trial of them Of which excellency of the Senses there remains in us only some dim sparks in those qualities which we call sympathies and antipathies wherof the reasonss are plain out of our late discourse and are nothing else but a conformity or opposition of a living creature by some individual property of it to some body without it in such sort as its conformity or opposition to things by its specifical qualities is term'd natubal or against nature But of this we shall discourse more at large hereafter Thus it appears how the senses are seated in us principally for the end of moving us to or from objects that are good for or hurtful to us But though our Reader be content to allow this intent of nature in our three inferiour senses yet he may peradventure not be satisfied how the two more noble ones the Hearing and the Seeing cause such motions to or from objects as are requisite to be in living creatures for the preservation of them for may he say how can a man by only seeing an object or by hearing the sound of it tell what qualities it is imbued with or what motion of liking or disliking can be caus'd in his heart by his meer receiving the visible species of an object at his eyes or by his ears hearing some noise it makes And if there be no such motion there what should occasion him to prosecute or avoid that object When he tasts or smells or touches a thing he finds it sweet or bitter or stinking or hot or cold and is therwith either pleased or displeased but when he only sees or hears it what liking or disliking can he have of it in order to the preservation of his nature The solution of this difficulty may in part appear out of what we have already said But for the most part the objects of these two nobler senses move us by being joyn'd in the Memory with some other thing that either pleas'd or displeas'd some of the other three senses And from thence it is that the motion of going to imbrace the object or
thither the objects that come into the brain and this we shall find carries back to the brain the passion or motion which by the object is rais'd in the heart Concerning this part of our body you are to note that it is a musculous membrane which in the middle of it hath a sinewy circle wherto is fastned the case of the heart call'd the Pericardium This Diaphragma is very sensible receiving its vertue of feeling from the above mention'd branch of the sixth couple of nervs and being of a trembling nature is by our respiration kept in continual moon and flaps upon all occasions as a drum head would do if it were slack and moist or as a sail would do that were brought into the wind Out of this description of it 't is obvious to conceive that all the changes of motion in the heart must needs be express'd in the Diaphragma For the heart beating upon the Pericardium and the Pericardium being join'd to the Diaphragma such jogs and vibrations must needs be imprinted and ecchoed there as are formed in the heart which from thence cannot chuse but be carried to the brain by the sixth couple of nervs And thus it comes about that we feel and have sensation of all the passions that are moved in our heart Which peradventure is the reason why the Greeks call this part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and from it derive the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in Latine signifies Sapere with Us to Savour or to like for by this part of our body we have a liking of any object or a motion of inclination towards it from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived by composition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a prudent man is he that likes and is moved to compass wholsom and good things Which Etymology of the word seems to me more natural than from the phrensy from whence some derive it because a great distemper or inflammation in the Diaphragma often causes that disease Now because the object is covey'd from the brain to the heart some part of its way by the same passage as the motion of the heart is re-convey'd back to the brain it must of necessity follow that who is more attentive to outward sense less considers or reflects on his passion and who is more attentive to observe and be govern'd by what passes in his heart is less wrought upon by external things For if his fantasy draws strongly to it the emanations from outward agents upon the senses the stream of those emanations will descend so strongly from the overfill'd fantasy into the heart that it will hinder the ascent of any fewer and weaker spirits by the same pipe But if the current set strongest upwards from the heart by the Diaphragma to the brain then it will so fill the pipe by which it ascends that little of a weaker tide can make a contrary eddy water in the same channel And by this means nature effects a second pleasure or pain in a living creature which moves it oftentimes very powerfully in absence of the primary object as we may observe when thinking of any pleasing or displeasing action we find about our heart a motion which entices us to it or averts us from it For as the first pleasure was occasioned by the stroke which the object apply'd to the outward sense made upon the fantasy which can judg of nothing without being strucken by it so the second pleasure springs from the spirits moved in the heart by messengers from the brain which by the Diaphragma rebound a stroke back again upon the fantasy And from hence it proceeds that Memory delights or afflicts us and that we think of past things with sweetness or with remorse and therby assuefaction is wrought in beasts as far as the appetitive part contributes therto to perfect what was begun in their cognoscitive part by the ingression of corporeal specieses into their fantasy in order to the same effect as we have touch'd before But now let us examine how so small a quantity of a body as comes from an object into our sense can be the cause of so great a motion about our heart To which purpose we are to remember that this motion is perform'd in the most subtile and thin substance that can be imagin'd They are the vital spirits that do all this work which are so subtile so agil and so hot that they may in some sort be termed fire Now if we reflect how violent fire is we need not wonder at the suddain and great motion of these passions But we must further take notice that they are not in the greatest excess but where the living creature hath been long inured and exercised to them either directly or indirectly so that they arrive not to that pitch so much out of the power of the agent as out of the preparation and disposition of the patient As when cold water hath been often heated by extinguishing red hot irons in it after some repetitions a few quenchings will reduce it from cold to boiling that at the first would scarce have made it lukewarm and accordingly we see a heart that for a long time hath loved and vehemently desired enjoying is transported in a high degree at the least sight and renuance of strokes from its beloved object and is as much dejected upon any the least deprivation of it For to such an object the living creature is hurried away by a force much resembling the gravity or celerity of a dense body that is set on runing down a steep hill to which the only taking away of a weak let or the least stop gives a precipitate course not out of the force of what is done to it but out of the force which was formerly in the thing though for the present it lay there undiscovered and so likewise in these cases the object rather gives the occasion of the violent motion than the force or power to it These things being thus determined some peradventure may ask how it comes to pass that the spirits which cause motion being sent on their errand by the brain alwayes hit the right way and light duly into those very sinews which move the living creature according as is requisite for its nature Since all the passages are open what is it that governs them so as they never mistake and the animal is never driven towards harm in stead of flying from it Who is their guide in these obscure paths But it were to impute ignorance to the Maker to think that he framed all the passages alike and so every one of them promiscuously apt to receive into them all sorts of spirits however they be moved And therfore we may assure our selvs that since in these diversities of occasions there are likewise divers kinds of motions from the heart either there is proportionable to them divers kinds of passages fit to receive and entertain
the spirits according to the condition they are in so as the passages which are ajusted to one kind of spirits will not admit any of another nature orelse the first motions of liking or disliking in the heart which as we have said cause a swelling or a contradiction of it against this or that part stops and hinders the entrance of the spirits into some sinews and opens others and drives the spirits into them so as in the end by a result of a chain of swellings and contractions of several parts successively one against another the due motions of prosecution or aversion are brought about As for example an object that affects the heart with liking by dilating the spirits about the heart sends some into the optick nervs and makes the living creature turn his eye towards it and keep it steady upon what he desires as contrariwise if he dislike and fear it he naturally turns his eye and head from it Now of this motion of the eye and head may depend the running to the thing in one case and the running from it in the other for the turning of the neck one way may open a passage for the spirits into those sinews which carry the rest of the body towards the object and the turning of it to the other side may open other sinews which shall work a contrary effect and carry the animal from the object And the moving of those sinews which at first turn the neck proceeds from the quality and number of the spirits that ascend from the heart and from the region of the heart whence they are sent according to the variety wherof there are divers sinews fitted to receive them To make up which discourse we call to mind what we have said a little above concerning the motions caused in the external parts of the body by passion moving within as when Fear mingled with hope gives a motion to the legs Anger to the arms and hands and all the rest of the body as wel as to the legs all of them an attention in the outward senses which neverthelessperverts every one of their functions if the passion be in extremity And then surely we may satisfie our selves that either this or some way like it which I leave to the curious in Anatomy to settle with exactness for 't is enough for my intent to shew in gross how these operations may be done without calling in some incomprehensible qualities to our aid is the course of nature in motions where no other cause intervenes besides the object working upon the sense which all the while it doth it is the office of the eye of fantasie or common sense to lie ever open still watching to observe what warnings the outward senses send to him that accordingly he may direct and chang the motions of the heart and whole body But if the object make violent impressions upon the sense and the heart being then vehemently moved therupon send abundance of spirits up to the brain this multitude of spirits thronging upon the common sense oppresses it as we have already said in such sort that the notice which the sense gives of particular circumstances cannot prevail to any effect in the brain and thus by the misguidance of the heart the work of nature is disordered Which when it happens we express in short by saying that Passion blinds the creature in whom such violent and disorderly motions have course for Passion is nothing else but a Motion of the Bloud and Spirits about the Heart and is the preparation or beginning of the Animals working as we have above particularly displai'd And thus you see in common how the circuit is made from the Object to the Sense and from it by the Common sense and Fantasie to the Heart and from the heart back again to the brain which then sets on work those Organs or parts the animal is to make use of in that occasion and they either bring him to or carry him from the object that at the first caused all this motion and in the end becomes the period of it CHAP. XXXVI Of some actions of Beasts that seem formal acts of reason as doubting resolving inventing IN the last Chapter the foundations are laid and the way is opened for discovering how all operations which proceed from nature and passion are perform'd among living creatures and therfore I conceive I have therby sufficiently compli'd with the obligation of my intention which is but to express and shew in common how all the actions of sensible bodies may be reduced to local motion and material application of one body to another in a like manner though in a different degree as those motions which we see in lifeless bodies Yet because among such animals as pass for irrational there happen some operations of so admirable a strain as resemble very much the higest effects which proceed from a man I think it not a miss to give some further light by extending my discourse to some more particulars than hitherto I have done wherby the course and way how they are performed may be more clearly and easily look'd into And the rather because I have met with some men who either wanting patience to bestow on thoughts of this kind so much time as is necessary for the due scanning of them or else through a promptitude of nature passing swiftly from the effect they look upon in gross to the most obvious seeming cause suddenly and strongly resolve that beasts use discourse upon occasions and are endued with reason Yet I intend not here to run through all the several species of their operations for that were to write the history of every particular animal but will content my self with touching the causes in common yet in such sort that the indifferent Reader may be satisfied of a possibility that these effects may proceed from material causes and that I have pointed out the way to those who are more curious and have the patience and leasure to observe diligently what passes among beasts how they may trace these effects from step to step till at length they discover their true causes To begin then I concieve we may reduce all those actions of Beasts which seem admirable and above the reach of an irrational animal to three or four several heads The first may be of such as seem to be the very practice of reason as doubting resolving inventing and the like The next shall be of such as by docility or practice beasts oftentimes arrive to In the third place we will consider certain continuate actions of a long tract of time so orderly perform'd by them as that discourse and rational knowledge seem clearly to shine through them And lastly we will cast our eye upon some others which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself as the knowing of things which the sense never had impression of before a prescience of future events providences and the like As for
then he will discern how these are but material instruments of a rational agent working by them from whose orderly prescriptions they have not power to swerve in the least circumstance that is Every one of which consider'd singly by it self hath a face of no more diffrently than that for example an Engineer should so order his matters that a Mine should be ready to play exactly at such an hour by leaving such a proportion of kindled match hanging our of one of the barrels of powder whiles in the mean time he either sleeps or attends to somthing else And when you have once gain'd thus much of your self to agree to an orderly course and generation of any single effect by the power of a material cause working in it raise but your discourse a strain higher and look with reverence and duty up-the Immensity of That Provident Architect out of whose hands these master-pieces issue and to whom it is as easy to make a chain of causes of a thousand or million of links as to make one link alone and then you will no longer stick at allowing the whole oeconomy of those actions to be nothing else but a production of material effects by a due ranging and ordering of material causes But let us return to our theam As we see that milk coming into the breasts of live-bearing female creatures when they grow very big heats and makes them seek the mouths of their young ones to disburthen and cool them so the carriage and bigness of the Eggs heats exceedingly the breasts and bodies of the Birds and this causes them to be still rubbing of their breasts against the sides of the nests wherto their unwieldiness then contines them very much and with their Beaks to be still picking their Feathers which being then apt to fall off and mew as we see the hair of women with child is apt to shed it happens that by then they are ready to lay their Eggs they have a soft bed of their own Feathers made in their Nests over their courser mattress of straws they first brought thither And then the Eggs powerful attracting of the annoying heat from the Hens breast whose imbibing of the warmth and stone-like shell cannot choose but cool her much invites her to sit constantly upon them till sitting hatches them And 't is evident that this sitting must proceed from their temper at that time or from some other immediate cause which works that effect and not from a judgment that doth it for a remote end for house-wives tells us that at such a season their Hens will be sitting in every convenient place they come to as though they had Eggs to hatch when never a one is under them so as it seems that at such time there is some inconvenience in their bodies which by sitting is eased When the Chickens are hatched what wonder is it if the little cryings of tender creatures of a like nature and language with their Dam move those affections or passions in her bosome which causes her to feed them and so defend and breed them till they be able to shift for themselvs For all this there needs no discourse or reason but only the motion of the blood about the heart which we have determin'd to be passion stir'd by the young ones chirpings so as may carry them to those actions which by nature the supreme intellect are order'd for their preservation Wherin the Birds as we have already said are but passive instruments and know not why they do those actions but do them they must whenever such and such objects which infallibly work in their due times make such and such impressions upon their fantasies like the allarum that necessarily strikes when the hand of the Dial comes to such a point or the Gun-powder that necessarily makes a ruine and breach in the wall when the burning of the match reaches to it Now this love in the Dam growing by little and little wearisome and troublesome to her and not being able to supply their encreased needs which they grow every day stronger to provide for of themselvs the strait commerce begins to die on both sides and by these degrees the Dam leaves her young ones to their own conduct And thus you see how this long series of actions may have orderly causes made and chain'd together by him that knew what was fitting for the work he went about Of which though 't is likely I have missed the right ones as it cannot choose but happen in all disquisitions where one is the first to break the Ice and so slenderly informed of the particular circumstances of the matter in question as I profess to be in this yet I concieve this discourse plainly shews that he who hath done more than we are able to comprehend and understand may have set causes sufficient for all these effects in a better order and in completer ranks than those we have here expressed and yet in them so coursely hew'd out appears a possibility of having the work done by corporeal agents Surely it were very well worth the while for some curious and judicious person to observe carefully and often the several steps of nature in this progress for I am strongly perswaded that by such industry we might in time arrive to very particular knowledge of the immediate and precise causes that work all these effects And I conceive that such observation needs not be very troublesome as not requiring any great variety of creatures to institute it upon for by marking carefully all that passes among our home-bred Hens I believe it were easy to guess very nearly at all the rest CHAP. XXXVIII Of Prescience of future events Providences the knowing of things never seen before and such other actions observed in some living creatures which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself THe fourth and last kind of actions which we may with astonishment observ among beasts I conceive will avail little to infer that the creatures which do them are endew'd with reason and understanding for such they are as if we should admit that yet we should still be as far to seek for the causes whence they proceed What should move a Lamb to tremble at the first sight of a Woolf or a Hen at a Kite never before seen neither the grimest Mastiff nor the biggest Owl will at all affright them That which in the ordinary course of nature causes beasts to be afraid of men or of other beasts is the hurt and evil they recive from them which coming into their fantasie together with the Idea of him that did it is also lodg'd together with it in the memory from whence they come link'd or glew'd together when ever the stroke of any new object calls either of them back into the fantasie This is confirm'd by the tameness of the birds and beasts which the first discoverers of Islands not inhabited by men found in those they met with there
that every action of thine be it never so slight is mainly mischievous or be it never so bedeckt with those specious considerations which the wise men of the world judg important is foolish absurd and unworthy of a man unworthy of one that understands and acknowledges thy dignity if in it there be any speck or through it there appear any spark of those mean and flat motives which with a false byas draw any way aside from attaining that happiness we expect in thee That happiness ought to be the end and mark we level at that the rule and model of all our actions that the measure of every circumstance of every atome of whatever we bestow so precious a thing upon as the employment of thee is But we must not so slightly pass over the intenseness and vehemence of that Felicity which thou my Soul shalt injoy when thou art sever'd from thy benuming compartner I see evidently that thou dost not survive a simple dull essence but art replenish'd with a vast incomprehensible extent of riches delight within thy self I see that golden chain which here by long discourses fills huge volumes of Books and dives into the Hidden natures of several Bodies all in thee resumed into one circle or link which contains in it self the large scope of whatever screwing discourse can reach to I see it comprehend and master the whole world of Bodies I see every particular nature as it were imbossed out to the life in thy celestial garment I see every solitary substance rank'd in its due place and order not crush'd or throng'd by the multitude of its fellows but each of them in its full extent in the full propriety of every part and effect of it and distinguish'd into more divisions than ever nature sever'd it into In thee I see an infinite multitude enjoy place enough I see that neither height nor profundity nor longitude nor latitude are able to exempt themselvs from thy defused powers they faddom all they comprehend all they master all they inrich thee with the stock of all and thou thy self art all and somwhat more than all and yet now but one of all I see that every one of this all in thee encreases the strength by which thou know'st any other of the same all al encreases the knowledg of all by a multiplication beyond the skill of Arithmetick being in its kind absolutely infinite by having a nature incapable of being either infinite or finite I see again that those things which have not knowledg are situated in the lowest and meanest rank of creatures and are in no wise comparable to those which know I see there is no pleasure at all no happiness no felicity but by and in knowledg Experience teaches me how the purer and nobler race of mankind adores in their hearts this idol of knowledg and scorns whatever else they seem to court and be fond of And I see that this excess or Sea of knowledg which is in thee grows not by the succession of one thought after another but it is like a full swoln Ocean never ebing on any coast but equally pushing at all its bounds and tumbling out its flowing waves on every side and into every creek so that every where it makes high tide Or like a pure Sun which from all parts of it shoots its radiant beams with a like extremity of violence And I see likewise that this admirable knowledg is not begotten and conserv'd in thee by the accidentary help of defective causes but rooted in thy self and steep'd in thy own essence like an unextinguishable sourse of a perpetual streaming fire or the living head of an everruning spring beholding to none out of thy self save only to thy Almighty Creator and begging of none but being in thy self all that of which thou should'st beg This then my Soul being thy lot and such a height of pleasure being reserv'd for thee such an extremity of felicity within a short space attending thee can any degenerate thought ever gain strength enough to shake the evidence which these considerations implant and rivet in thee Can any dull oblivion deface this so lively and so beautiful image or any length of time draw in thy memory a veil between it and thy present attention Can any perversity so distort thy straight eys that thou should'st not look alwaies fix'd on this Mark and level thy aim directly at this White How is it possible that thou canst brook to live and not expire presently therby to ingulf thy self and be throughly imbibed with such an overflowing bliss Why dost thou not break the walls and chains of thy flesh and blood and leap into this glorious liberty Here Stoicks you are to use your swords Upon these considerations you may justifie the letting out the blood which by your discourses you seem so prodigal of To die upon these terms is not to part with that which you fondly call happy life feeding your selvs and flattering your hearts with empty words but rather it is to plunge your selvs into a felicity you were never able to imagine or frame to your misguided thoughts any scantling of But nature pulls me by the ear and warns me from being so wrongful to her as to conceive that so wise a governess should to no advantage condemn mankind to so long a banishment as the ordinary extent of his dull life wearisom pilgrimage here under the Sun reaches to Can we imagine she would allow him so much lazy time to effect nothing in Or can we suspect she intends him no further advantage than what an abortive child arrives to in his mothers womb For whatever the nets and toils of discourse can circle in all that he who but once knows that himself is can attain to as fully as he that is enrich'd with the Science of all things in the world For the connexion of things is so linked together that proceeding from any one you reach the knowledg of many and from many you cannot 〈◊〉 of attaining all So that a Separated Soul which but knows her self cannot choose but know her Body too and from her Body she cannot miss in proceeding from the causes of them both as far as immediate causes proceed from others over them and as little can she be ignorant of all the effects of those causes she reaches to And thus all that huge masse of knowleg and happ ness which we have consider'd in our last reflection amounts to no more than the silliest Soul buried in warm blood can and will infallibly attain to when its time comes We 〈◊〉 then assure our selvs that just nature hath provided and 〈◊〉 a greater measure of such felicity for longer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much greater as may well be worth the pains and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so miserable and tedious a passage as here my Soul 〈◊〉 â—gglest through For certainly if the dull percussion which by natures institution hammers out a spiritual Soul from gross 〈◊〉
my word that he will find this change so advantageous to him even in contentment and delight that he will not easily be brought back to his former course of life Experience shews us that whatever is long customary to us turns into our nature so much that even diseases and poisons by diâ—turne use mould and temper to themselves those bodies which are habituated to them in such sort that those pests of nature must be kept on foot and fed on for our sustenance How much more then must the most connatural exercise of mental pleasure turn so substantially into our being that after some good practice in it we shall not be able without great strugling and reluctation to live without it The violence of fruition in those foul puddles of flesh and bloud presently gluts with satiety and is attended with annoy and dislike and the often using and repeating it wears away that edg of pleasure which only makes it sweet and valuable even to them that set their hearts on it and nothing heightens it but an irritation by a convenient hunger and abstinence Contrarywise in the Soul the greater and more violent the pleasure is the more intense and vehement the fruition is and the oftner it is repeated so much the greater appetite and desire we have to return to the same and nothing provokes us more than the entire and absolute fruition of it If a suddain change from one extream of flesh and bloud to the other opposite pole of spiritual delights and entertainments seem harsh to him whose thoughts by long assuefaction are glew'd to corporal objects let him begin with gently bridling in his inferiour motions under a fair rule of government If he cannot presently suppress and totally mortifie their clamorous desires let him at least moderate and steer them according to the bent of reason If we wil but follow this course which nature teaches us to heighten even our sensual delights and pleasures by reasonable moderation of them to their own advantage we shall find her so kind a mother to us that of her self she will aâ— length quel and dis-ncumber us of all our enemies If we but temparately attend her work she will quietly waft us over to our desired end to our beloved happiness In a few years by boyling away our unruly heat she will abate and in the end quite wear away the sense of those transporting pleasures we used to take so much delight in the fruition of With in a while rheums will so clog our tongue and palates that we shall but flatly relish the most poinant meates Our dulâ—'d ear 's will no longer devour with delight the ravishing sound of sweet harmonies Our dim eyes will carry to our heavy fansie but confused news of any beautiful and pleasing objects Our stopp'd nosethrils will afford no passage for spiritual perfumes to warn and recreate our moist and drowsie brain In a word nature will ere long warn us to take a long farewel of all those contentments and delights which require a strong vigorous athletike habite of body to enjoy She will shew us by seting our graves before our eyes how vain this glitering fansie of Honour is how unprofitable the staff of Power to underprop our falling being how more burthensome than helpful are those massie heaps of Gold and Silver which when we have the greatest use we make of them is but to look on them and court them with our dazled eyes while they encompass us with armies of traytors and hungry wolves to teare them from us and us in pieces for their sake Thus will nature of her self in a short time dull those weapons that offend us and destroy the enemies of those verities that shine upon us Courage then my Soul and neither fear to live nor yet desire to die If thou continuest in thy Body 't is easie for thee and sweet and contentsome to heap up treasures for Eternity And if thou partest from it thy hopes are great and fair that the journey thou art going is to a world of unknown felicity Take heart then and march on with a secure diligence and expect the hand of bounteous nature to dispose of thee according as she hath wisely and benignly provided for thee And fear not but that if thou hast kept a reasonable amity with her she will pass thee to where thou shalt never more be in danger of jaring with her nor of feeling within thy self the unkind blows of contrary powers fighting in thee whiles thou bleedest with the wounds that each side gives nor of changing thy once gain'd happiness into a contrary condition according to the vicissitudes of all humane affairs But shall for ever be swell'd to the utmost extent of thy infinite nature with this torrent with this abiss of joy pleasure and delight But here my Soul well maist thou stand amazed at this great word For ever What will this be when fleeting time shall be converted into permanent Eternity Sharpen thy sight to look into this vast profundity Suppose that half an hour were resumed into one instant or indivisible of time what a strange kind of durance would that be I see that half an hour is divisible without end into halfs and halfs of halfs and quarters of quarters and after myriads of divisions no parcel is so little but that it hath an infinite superproportion to an indivisible instant What a prodigious thing then must it be to have an instant equalise half an hour Were it but some ordinary notion or quiddity as of magnitude of place of activity or the like in which this excellency of an indivisibles equalizing a large extent were consider'd my fantasie would offer to wrestle with it and peradventure by strong abstraction and deep retirement into the Closet of Judgment I might hazard to frame some likeness of it But that wherin this multiplication is is the noblest the highest and the root of all other notions it is Being and Existence it self I my self while I am have my existence determined but to one poor instant of time and beyond that I am assured of nothing My slender thred of Being may break I still find it may break asunder as near to that instant as I can suppose any thing to be near it and when I shall have supposed Here it may break nearer and nearer and I can never arrive to settle the nearest point where it may snap in two But when time shall be no more or at least shall in respect of me be turn'd into Eternity this this frail Existence of mine will be stretch'd out beyond the extent of all-conquering time What stange thing then is this admirable multiplication of Existence or how may I be able to comprehend it Existence is that which comprehends all things and if God be not comprehended in it thereby it is that he is incomprehensible of us and he is not comprehended in it because himself is it He is existence and by being so he