Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	body_n	spirit_n	vital_a	3,629	5	10.6721	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35976	A late discourse made in a solemne assembly of nobles and learned men at Montpellier in France touching the cure of wounds by the powder of sympathy : with instructions how to make the said powder : whereby many other secrets of nature are unfolded / by Sr. Kenelme Digby, knight ; rendred faithfully out of French into English by R. White.	Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.; White, R., Gent.	1658 (1658)	Wing D1435; ESTC R27859	54,616	164

have a ring of gold on the other it will become white and covered with mercury though it doth not any way touch it Moreover if you put a leaf of gold or a crown of gold in your mouth and if you put but one of your toes in a thing where mercury is the gold which is in your mouth though you shut up your lips never so close shall turn white and laden with mercury then if you put this gold in the fire to make all the mercury evaporate and that you reiterate the same thing your gold will be calcind as if you had by amalgation joyned mercury therewith corporally And all this will yet be done more spee dily and effectually if in lieu of common mercury you make use of mercury of antimony which is much hotter and more penetrating and though you drive it away by force of fire it will carry away with it a good quantity of the substance of the gold in such sort that reiterating often this operations there will no more gold remain for you to continue your experiments If then that cold mercury doth so penetrate the whole body we ought not to think it strange that subtill atoms of fruit composed of many ignited parts will passe with more facility and quicknesse I will further make you see how such spirits and emanations do suddenly also penetrate steel though it be a substance so compacted cold and hard that the said atoms may keep their residence there many moneths and yeers Within a living body such as is mans the intern spirits do aid and contribute much facility to the spirits that are without such as those of fruits are to make their journy the more easte to the brain The great Architect of nature in the fabrick of human body the master-peece of corporal nature hath placed there some intern spirits to serve as centinells to bring their discoveries to their General viz. to the imagination who is as it were the Mistresse of the whole family whereby a man might know and understand what is done without the Kingdom within the great World and that it might shun what is noxious and seek after that which is profitable For these sentinels or intern spirits with all the inhabitants of the sensitive organs are not able to judge alone insomuch that if the imagination or thought be distracted strongly to some object these intern spirits do not know whether a man hath drunk the wine which he hath swallowed if perchance seeing a person who comes to salute him he fixeth his eye upon him all the while or if he listens attentively to the air of some melodious song or musicall instrument for the inward spirits bring all their acquisitions to the imagination and if she be not more strongly bent upon another object she falls a forming certain Idaeas and Images because that the atomes from without being conveyed by these intern spirits to our imagination erect there the like edifice or else a model in short resembling the great body whence they come forth And if our imagination hath no more use of those significative atoms for the present she rangeth them in some proper place within her Magazin which is the memory where she can repeal and rebuke them when she pleaseth And if there be any object which causeth some emotions in the imagination and toucheth her more near than common objects use to do she sends back her sentinels the internal spirits upon the confines to bring her more particular news And thence it proceeds that a man being surprized by some particular man or other object who hath already some eminent place in his imagination be it of desire or aversion then that man sudendly changeth colour and becomes red then pale then red again at diverse times according as the Ministers which are those intern spirits do go quick or slow towards their object then they return with their reports to their Mistress which is the imagination But besides these passages we speak of which go from the brain to the external parts of the body by the ministery of the nerves there is also a great road from the brain to the heart by which the vital spirits do ascend from the heart to the brain to be animated and hereby the imagination sends unto the heart those atoms which she hath received from some exterternal object and there they make an ebullition betwixt the vital spirits which according to the intervening atoms either cause a dilatation of the heart and so gladden it or they do contract it so sadden it and these two differing and contrary actions are the first general effects whence proceed afterwards the particular passions which require not that I pursue them too far in this place having done it more particularly else where and more expressely Besides these passages which are common to all men and women there is another that 's peculiar only to females which is from the brain to the matrix whereby it often falls out that such violent vapours mount up to the brain and those in so great a number that they often hinder the operation of the brain and of the imagination causing convulsions and follies with other strange accidents and by the same channel the spirits or atoms passe with a greater liberty and swiftnesse to the womb or matrix when the case requires Now le ts consider how the strong imagination of one man doth marvailously act upon another man who hath it more feeble and passive We see dayly that if a person gape those who see him gaping are excited to do the same If one come perchance to converse with persons that are subject to excesse of laughter one can hardly forbear laughing although one doth not know the cause why they laugh If one should enter into a house where all the World is sad he becomes melancholy for as one said Si vis me flere dolendum est primum ipsi tibi Women and Children being very moist and passive are most susceptible of this unpleasing contagion of the imagination I have known a very melancholy woman which was subject to the disease called the Mother and while she continued in that mood she thought her self possessed and did strange things which among those that knew not the cause passed for supernatural effects and of one possessed by the ill spirit she was a person of quality and all this happened because of the deep resentment she had for the death of her Husband She had attending her four or five young Gentlewomen whereof some were her Kinswomen and others served her as Chambermaids All these came to be possessed as she was and did prodigious actions These young Maids were separated from her sight and communication and as they had not yet contracted such profound roots of the evil they came to be all cured by their abscence and this Lady was also cured afterwards by a Physitian which purged the atrabilious humors and restored her matrix to its former

estate there was neither imposture or dissimulation in this I could make a notable recital of such passions that happened to the Nunnes at Lodnn but having done it in a particular Discourse at my return from that Country where I as exactly as I could discussed the point I will forbear speaking thereof at this time otherwise then to pray you to remember that when two Lutes or two Harps near one another both set to the same tune if you touch the strings of the one the other consonant harp will sound at the same time though no body touch it whereof Galileo hath ingeniously rendred the reason Now to make application to our purpose of all that hath been produced to this effect I say that since it is impossible that two several persons should be so near one another as the mother and the infant when he lies in the womb one may thence conclude That all the effects of a strong and vehement imagination working upon another more feeble passive and tender ought to be more efficacious in the Mother acting upon her son then when the imaginations of other persons act upon them who are nothing to them And as it is impossible for a Master of Musick let him be never so expert and exact can tune so perfectly any two Harps as the great Master of the Universe doth the two bodies of the Mother and the Infant so it follows by consequence that the concussion of the principal string of the Mothers which is the imagination ought to produce a greater shaking of the consonant string in the Infant to wit his imagination then the string of a Lute being touched upon the consonant strings of another and when the mother sends spirits to some parts of her body the like must be sent to some part of the childs body Now le ts call to memory how the imagination of the mother is full of corporal atoms which come from the Mulberry or Strawberry which fell upon the neck and brest and her imagination being then surprized with an emotion by the suddennesse of the accident it follows necessarily that the must send some of these atomes also to the brain of the Infant and so to the same part of the body where she took the stain first twixt which and the brain there passe such frequent and speedy messengers as we have formerly set forth The Infant also on his part who hath his parts also tuned in an harmonious consonance with the mothers cannot faile to observe the same movement of spirits twixt his imagination and his neck and his brest as the mother did twixt hers and these spirits being accompanied with atoms of the Mulberry which the mother conveyed to his imagination they make a profound impression and lasting mark upon his delicate skin whereas that of the mothers was more hard As if one should let fly a Pistol charged with powder onely against a marble the powder doth nothing but sully it a little which may quickly be rubd off but if one should discharge such a Pistol at a mans face the graines of the powder would pierce the skin so stick and dwell there all his life time and make themselves known by their black-blewish colour which they alwayes conserve In like manner the small grains or atomes of the fruit which passed from the mothers neck to the imagination of the Infant and thence to the same place upon his skin do lodge and continually dwell there for the future and serve as a source to draw the atoms of the like fruit dispersed in the air according to their season as the wine in the Tonne draws unto it the volatil spirits of the Vines and in drawing them the part of the skin where they reside ferments swells eats and inflames and sometimes breaks But to render yet more considerable these marvalous marks of longing since we are upon this subject I cannot forbear to touch also another circumstance which might seem at first to be a miracle of nature beyond the causes which I have alledged but having well eventilated it we shall absolutely find that it depends upon the same principles It is that oftentimes it falls out that the impression of the thing desired or longed for by the mother falls upon the child although she touch it not or that it falls upon her body T is sufficient that some other thing do fall or inexpectedly beat upon some part of the woman with child while such a longing doth predominate in her imagination and the figure of the thing so long desired after will be found at last imprinted upon the same part of the body of the Infant as it was upon the mother who received the blow The reason hereof is that the atoms of the thing longed for being raised up by the light go to the brain of the big mother through the channel of the eyes as well as other more material atomes proceeding from the corporal touch would go thither by the guidance of the nerves And of these petty bodies the mother forms in her imagination a complete model of that whence they flow forth by way of emanation But if the women be not attarchd but inwardly these atomes which are in her imagination make no other voyage than to her heart and thence to the imagination and to the heart of the Infant and so cause a reinforcement of the passion in them both which may be moved to such a violent impetuosity that if the mother doth not enjoy her longd-for object this passion may cause the destruction both of the one and the other at least prejudice her notably in their health and so make a great change in the body In the mean time if some unlooked for blow surprize the mother in any part of her body the spirits which reside in the brain are immediately sent thither by her imagination as it happens often in this case of longing But in all other such sudden surprisals either among women or men these spirits are transported with the more impetuosity the more the passion is violent As when one loves another passionately he runnes suddenly to the dore when any knocks or that Hylax in limine latrat hoping alwayes t is the party which entirely occupies his thoughts for qui amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt who comes to give him a visit And these spirits being moved by this sudden assault being then mingled with the petty bodies or atoms of the longd-for thing which possesseth so powerfully the fantasie they lead them along with themselves to the part of the body which is struck as also to the same part of the body of the Infant as well as to his imagination And after that all which happened is but the same in order to the mother and the child when the Mulberry or Strawberry fell upon the neck or breast of the Ladies with whom I have entertained you Permit me my Lords to enlarge my digression a little further in one word to raccount