a Skinny Substance or hinder the swallowing of our Meat therefore these annulary Gristles are not made round or entire Circles but where the Gullet touches the Windpipe there to fill up the Circle is only a soft Membrane which may easily give way to the Dilatation of the Gullet And to demonstrate that this was designedly done for this End and Use so soon as the Windpipe enters the Lungs its Cartilages are no longer deficient but perfect Circles or Rings because there was no necessity they should be so but it was more convenient they should be entire Lâ—â—â—ly for the various modulation of the Voice the upper end of the Wind-pipe is endued with several Cartilages and Muscles to contract or dilate it as we would have our Voice Flat or Sharp and moreover the whole is continually moistened with a glutinous Humor issuing out of the small Glandules that are upon its inner Coat to fence it against the sharp Air received in or Breath forced out yet is it of quick and tender Sense that it may be easily provoked to cast out by coughing whatever may fall into it from without or be discharged into it from within Seventhly The Heart which hath been always esteemed and really is one of the principal Parts of the Body the primum vivens ultimum moriens by its uncessant Motion distributing the Blood the Vehicle of Life and with it the Vital Heat and Spirits throughout the whole Body whereby it doth continually irrigate nourish and keep hot and supple all the Members Is it not admirable that from this Fountain of Life and Heat there should be Channels and Conduit-pipes to every even the least and most remote Part of the Body just as if from one Waterhouse there should be Pipes conveying the Water to every House in a Town and to every Room in each House or from one Fountain in a Garden there should be little Channels or Dikes cut to every Bed and every Plant growing therein as we have seen more than once done beyond the Seas I confess the Heart seems not to be designed to so noble an Use as is generally believed that is to be the Fountain or Conservatory of the vital Flame and to inspire the Blood therewith for the Lungs serve rather for the accension or maintaining that Flame the Blood receiving there from the Air those Particles which are one Part of the Pabulum or Fewel thereof and so impregnated running back to the Heart but to serve as a Machine to receive the Blood from the Veins and to force it out by the Arteries through the whole Body as a Syringe doth any Liquor though not by the same Artifice And yet this is no ignoble Use the continuance of the Circulation of the Blood being indispensibly necessary for the quickening and enlivening of all the Members of the Body and supplying of Matter to the Brain for the preparation of the Animal Spirits the Instruments of all Sense and Motion Now for this use of receiving and pumping out of the Blood the Heart is admirably contrived For First being a Muscular Part the Sides of it are composed of two orders of Fibres running circularly or spirally from Base to Tip contrarily one to the other and so being drawn or contracted contrary ways do violently constringe and straiten the Ventricles and strongly force out the Blood as we have formerly intimated Then the Vessels we call Arteries which carry from the Heart to the several Parts have Valves which open outwards like Trap-doors and give the Blood a free passage out of the Heart but will not suffer it to return back again thither and the Veins which bring it back from the several Members to the Heart have Valves or Trap-doors which open inwards so as to give way to the Blood to run into the Heart but prevent it from running back again that way Besides the Arteries consist of a quandruple Coat the Third of which is made up of annular or orbicular carneous Fibres to a good thickness and is of a Muscular Nature after every Pulse of the Heart serving to contract the Vessel successively with incredible celerity so by a kind of peristaltick Motion impelling the Blood onwards to the capillary Extremities and through the Muscles with great force and swiftness So the Pulse of the Arteries is not only caused by the pulsation of the Heart driving the Blood through them in manner of a Wave or Flush as Des Cartes and others would have it but by the Coats of the Arteries themselves which the experiments of a certain Lovain Physitian the first whereof is Galens do in my opinion make good against him First saith he if you slit the Artery and thrust into it a Pipe so big as to fill the Cavity of it and cast a strait ligature upon that part of the Artery containing the Pipe and so bind it fast to the Pipe notwithstanding the Blood hath free passage through the Pipe yet will not the Artery beat below the ligature but do but take off the ligature it will commence again to beat immediately But because one might be ready to reply to this Experiment that the reason why when bound it did not beat was because the current of the Blood being straitned by the Pipe when beneath the Pipe it came to have more liberty was not sufficient to stretch the Coats of the Artery and so cause a Pulse but when the ligature was taken off it might flow between the enclosed tube and the Coat of the Artery therefore he adds another which clearly evinces that this could not be the reason but that it is something flowing down the Coats of the Artery that causes the Pulse that is If you straiten the Artery never so much provided the sides of it do not quite meet and stop all passage of the Blood the Vessel will notwithstanding continue still to beat below or beyond the Coarctation So we see some Physitians both Ancient as Galen and Modern were of opinion that the Pulse of the Arteries was owing to their Coats though the first that I know of who observed the third Coat of an Artery to be a muscular Body composed of annulary Fibres was Dr. Willis The mention of the peristaltick Motion puts me in mind of an ocular Demonstration of it in the Gullet of Kine when they chew the Cud which I have often beheld with pleasure For after they have swallowed one morsel if you look stedfastly upon their Throat you will soon see another ascend and run pretty swiftly all along the Throat up to the Mouth which it could not do unless it were impelled by the successive contraction or peristaltick Motion of the Gullet continually following it And it is remarkable that these ruminant Creatures have a power by the imperium of their wills of directing this peristaltick Motion upwards or downwards I shall add no more concerning the Heart but that it and the Brain do mutuas operas tradere enable one another
account thereof from the necessary motion of Matter unguided by Mind for Ends prudently therefore break off their System there when they should come to Animals and so leave it altogether untoucht We acknowledg indeed there is a Posthumous piece extant imputed to Cartes and entituled De la formation du Foetus wherein there is some Pretence made to salve all this by fortuitous Mechanism But as the Theory thereof is built wholly upon a false supposition sufficiently confuted by our Harvey in his Book of Generation that the Seed doth materially enter into the composition of the Egg So is it all along precarious and exceptionable nor doth it extend at all to the differences that are in several Animals nor offer the least reason why an Animal of one Species might not be formed out of the Seed of another Thus far the Doctor with whom for the main I do consent I shall only add that Natural Philosophers when they endeavor to give an account of any of the Works of Nature by preconceived Principles of their own are for the most part grosly mistaken and confuted by Experience as Des Cartes in a matter that lay before him obvious to sense and infinitly more easie to find out the Cause of than to give an account of the Formation of the World that is the Pulse of the Heart which he attributes to an Ebullition and sudden expansion of the Blood in the Ventricles after the manner of Milk which being heated to such a Degree doth suddenly and as it were all at once flush up and run over the Vessel Whether this Ebullition be caused by a Nitro-Sulphureous ferment lodged especially in the left Ventricle of the Heart which mingling with the Blood excites such an Ebullition as we see made by the mixture of some Chymical Liquors viz. Oil of Vitriol and deliquated Salt of Tartar or by the vital flame warming and boyling the Blood But this conceit of his is contrary both to Reason and Experience For first It is altogether unreasonable to imagine and affirm that the cool venal Blood should be heated to so high a degree in so short a time as the interval of two Pulses which is less than the sixth part of a Minute Secondly In cold Animals as for Example Eels the Heart will beat for many hours after it is taken out of the Body yea tho the Ventricle be opened and all the Blood squeezed out Thirdly The process of the Fibres which compound the sides of the Ventricles running in Spiral Lines from the Tip to the Base of the Heart some one way and some the contrary do clearly shew that the Systole of the Heart is nothing but a Muscular constriction as a Purse is shut by drawing the Strings contrary ways Which is also confirm'd by Experience for if the Vertex of the Heart be cut off and a finger thrust up into one of the Ventricles in every Systole the Finger will be sensibly and manifestly pincht by the sides of the Ventricle But for a full Confutation of this Fancy I refer the Reader to Dr. Lower's Treatise de Corde Chap. 2. and his Rules concerning the transferring of Motion from one Body in motion to another are the most of them by Experience found to be false as they affirm which have made Trial of them This Pulse of the Heart Dr. Cudworth would have to be no Mechanical but a Vital motion which to me seems probable because it is not under the command of the Will nor are we conscious of any Power to cause or to restrain it but it is carried on and continued without our knowledge or notice neither can it be caused by the impulse of any external movent unless it be Heat But how can the Spirits agitated by Heat unguided by a vital Principle produce such a regular reciprocal motion If that Site which the Heart and its Fibres have in the Diastole be most natural to them as it seems to be why doth it again contract itself and not rest in that posture If it be once contracted in a Systole by the influx of the Spirits why the Spirits continually flowing in without let doth it not always remain so For the Systole seems to resemble the forcible bending of a Spring and the Diastole its flying out again to its natural site What is the Spring and principal Efficient of this Reciprocation What directs and moderates the motions of the Spirits They being but stupid and senseless matter cannot of themselves continue any regular and constant motion without the guidance and regulation of some intelligent Being You will say what Agent is it which you would have to effect this The sensitive Soul it cannot be because that is indivisible but the Heart when separated wholly from the Body in some Animals continues still to pulse for a considerable time nay when it hath quite ceased it may be brought to beat anew by the Application of warm Spittle or by pricking it gently with a Pin or Needle I answer it may be in these Instances the scattering Spirits remaining in the Heart may for a time being agitated by heat cause these faint Pulsations though I should rather attribute them to a plastick Nature or vital Principle as the Vegetation of Plants must also be But to proceed neither can I wholly acquiesce in the Hypothesis of that Honourable and deservedly famous Author I formerly had occasion to mention which I find in his free Enquiry into the vulgar Notion of Nature P. 77 78. delivered in these Words I think it probable that the great and wise Author of things did when he first formed the Universal and Undistinguished Matter into the World put its parts into various Motions whereby they were necessarily divided into numberless Portions of differing Bulks Figures and Situations in respect of each other And that by his infinite Wisdom and Power he did so guide and over-rule the motions of these Parts at the beginning of things as that whether in a shorter or a longer time Reason cannot determine they were finally disposed into that Beautiful and Orderly Frame that we call the World among whose Parts some were so curiously contrived as to be fit to become the Seeds or feminal Principles of Plants and Animals And I further conceive that he setled such Laws or Rules of local Motion among the parts of the Universal Matter that by his ordinary and preserving Concurse the several parts of the Universe thus once completed should be able to maintain the great Construction or System and Oeconomy of the mundane Bodies and propagate the Species of living Creatures The same Hypothesis he repeats again Pag. 124 125. of the same Treatise This Hypothesis I say I cannot fully acquiesce in because an intelligent Being seems to me requisite to execute the Laws of Motion For first Motion being a fluent thing and one part of its Duration being absolutely independent upon another it doth not follow that because any thing moves this moment
Secondly How can Man give thanks and praise to God for the use of his Limbs and Senses and those his good Creatures which serve for his sustenance when he cannot be sure they were made in any respect for him nay when 't is as likely they were not and that he doth but abuse them to serve ends for which they never intended Thirdly This Opinion as I hinted before supersedes and cassates the best medium we have to demonstrate the Being of a Deity leaving us no other demonstrative Proof but that taken from the innate Idea which if it be a Demonstration is but an obscure one not satisfying many of the learned themselves and being too subtle and metaphysical ro be apprehended by vulgar Capacities and consequently of no force to persuade and convince them Secondly They endeavour to evacuate and disanul our great Argument by pretending to solve all the Phaenomena of Nature and to give an Account of the Production and Efformation of the Universe and all the corporeal Beings therein both celestial and terrestrial as well animate as inanimate not excluding Animals themselves by a sleight Hypothesis of matter so and so divided and moved The Hypothesis you have in Des Cartes's Principles of Philosophy Part. 2. all the matter of this visible World is by him supposed to have been at first divided by God into Parts nearly equal to each other of a mean size viz. about the bigness of those whereof the Heavenly Bodies are now compounded all together having as much motion as is now found in the World and these to have been equally moved severally every one by itself about its own Center and among one another so as to compose a fluid body and also many of them jointly or in company about several other points so far distant from one another and in the same manner disposed as the Centres of the fixt Stars now are So that God had no more to do than to create the matter divide it into parts and put it into motion according to some few Laws and that would of itself produce the World and all Creatures therein For a Confutation of this Hypothesis I might refer the Reader to Dr. Cudworth's System p. 603. 604. but for his ease I will transcribe the words God in the mean time standing by as an Idle Spectator of this Lusus Atomorum this sportfull Dance of Atoms and of the various results thereof Nay these mechanick Theists have here quite outstripped and outdone the Atomick Atheists themselves they being much more extravagant then ever those were For the professed Atheists durst never venture to affirm that this regular Systeme of things resulted from the fortuitous motions of Atoms at the very first before they had for a long time together produced many other inept Combinations or aggregate Forms of particular things and nonsensical Systems of the whole and they supposedalso that the regularity of things here in this world would not always continue such neither but that some time or other Confusion and Disorder will break in again Moreover that besides this World of ours there are at this very instant innumerable other Worlds irregular and that there is but one of a thousand or Ten Thousand among the infinite Worlds that have such regularity in them the reason of all which is because it was generally taken for granted and lookt upon as a common notion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle expresseth it none of those things which are from Fortune or Chance come to pass always alike But our mechanick Theists will have their Atoms never so much as once to have fumbled in these their motions nor to have produced any inept System or incongruous forms at all but from the very first all along to have taken up their places and ranged themselves so orderly methodically and directly as that they could not possibly have done it better had they been directed by the most perfect Wisdom Wherefore these Atomick Theists utterly evacuate that grand Argument for a God taken from the Phaenomenon of the Artificial frame of things which hath been so much insisted upon in all Ages and which commonly makes the strongest impression of any other upon the minds of Men c. the Atheists in the mean time laughing in their Sleeves and not a little triumphing to see the Cause of Theism thus betrayed by its professed Friends and Assertors and the grand Argument for the same totally slurred by them and so their work done as it were to their hands Now as this argues the greatest Insensibility of mind or Sottishness and Stupidity in pretended Theists not to take the least notice of the regular and artificial frame of things or of the signatures of the Divine Art and Wisdom in them nor to look upon the World and things of Nature with any other Eyes than Oxen and Horses do So are there many Phaenomena in Nature which being partly above the force of these Mechanick Powers and partly contrary to the same can therefore never be salved by them nor without final Causes and some vital Principle As for Example that of Gravity or the tendency of Bodies downward the motion of the Diaphragm in Respiration the Systole and Diastole of the Heart which is nothing but a Muscular Constriction and Relaxation and therefore not mechanical but vital We might also add among many others the intersection of the Plains of the Equator and Ecliptick or the Earth's diurnal motion upon an Axis not parallel to that of the Ecliptick nor perpendicular to the Plain thereof For though Des Cartes would needs imagine this Earth of ours once to have been a Sun and so itself the centre of a lesser Vortex whose Axis was then directed after this manner and which therefore still kept the same Site or Posture by reason of the striate Particles finding no fit Pores or Traces for their passages through it but only in this direction yet does he himself confess that because these two motions of the Earth the Annual and Diurnal would be much more conveniently made upon parallel Axes therefore according to the Laws of Mechanism they should be perpetually brought nearer andnearer together till at length the Equator and Ecliptick come to have their axes parallel which as it has not yet come to pass so neither hath there been for these last Two Thousand Years according to the best Observations and Judgments of Astronomers any nearer approach made of them one to another Wherefore the continuation of these two motions of the Earth the Annual and Diurnal upon Axes not parallel is resolvable into nothing but a Final and Mental Cause or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was best it should be so the variety of the Seasons of the year depending thereupon But the greatest of all the particular Phaenomena is the Formation and Organization of the Bodies of Animals consisting of such variety and curiosity that these mechanick Philosophers being no way able to give an
it must necessarily continue to do so the next but it stands in as much need of an Efficient to preserve and continue its motion as it did at first to produce it Secondly Let Matter be divided into the subtilest parts imaginable and these be moved as swiftly as you will it is but a sensless and stupid Being still and makes no nearer approach to Sense Perception or vital Energy than it had before and do but only stop the internal motion of its parts and reduce them to Rest the finest and most subtile Body that is may become as gross and heavy and stiff as Steel or Stone And as for any external Laws or established Rules of Motion the stupid Matter is not capable of observing or taking any notice of them neither can those Laws execute themselves Therefore there must besides Matter and Law be some Efficient and that either a Quality or Power inherent in the Matter itself which is hard to conceive or some external intelligent Agent either God himself immediately or some Plastick Nature This latter I incline to for the Reasons alledged by Dr. Cudworth in his System Pag. 149. which are First Because the former according to vulgar apprehension would render the Divine Providence operose solicitous and distractious and thereby make the belief of it entertained with greater difficulty and give advantage to Atheists Secondly It is not so decorous in respect of God that he should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set his own hand as it were to every work and immediately do all the meanest and triflingst things himself drudgingly without making use of any inferiour or subordinate Ministers These two Reasons are plausible but not cogent the two following are of greater force Thirdly The slow and gradual Process that is in the generation of things which would seem to be a vain and idle Pomp or trifling Formality if the Agent were omnipotent Fourthly Those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls them those Errors and Bungles which are committed when the matter is inept or contumacious as in Monsters c. which argue the Agent not to be irresistible and that Nature is such a thing as is not altogether uncapable as well as Human Art of being sometimes frustrated and disappointed by the indisposition of the Matter Whereas an Omnipotent Agent would always do its Work infallibly and irresistibly no ineptitude or stubbornness of the Matter being ever able to hinder such an one or make him bungle or fumble in any thing So far the Doctor For my part I should make no Scruple to attribute the formation of Plants their growth and nutrition to the vegetative Soul in them and likewise the formation of Animals to the vegetative Power of their Souls but that the Segments and Cuttings of some Plants nay the very Chips and smallest Fragments of their Body Branches or Roots will grow and become perfect Plants themselves and so the vegetative Soul if that were the Architect would be divisible and consequently no spiritual or intelligent Being which the Plastick Principle must be as we have shewn For that must preside over the whole Oeconomy of the Plant and be one single Agent which takes care of the Bulk and Figure of the whole and the Situation Figure Texture of all the Parts Root Stalk Branches Leaves Flowers Fruit and all their Vessels and Juices I therefore incline to Dr. Cudworth's Opinion that God uses for these Effects the subordinate Ministry of some inferiour Plastick Nature as in his works of Providence he doth of Angels For the Description whereof I refer the Reader to his System Secondly In particular I am difficult to believe that the Bodies of Animals can be formed by Matter divided and moved by what Laws you will or can imagine without the immediate Presidency Direction and Regulation of some Intelligent Being In the generation or first formation of suppose the Human Body out of though not an Homogeneous Liquor yet a fluid Substance the only material Agent or Mover is a moderate Heat Now how this by producing an intestine Motion in the particles of the Matter which can be conceived to differ in nothing else but Figure Magnitude and Gravity should by virtue thereof not only separate the Heterogeneous Parts but assemble the Homogeneous into Masses or Systems and that not each kind into one Mass but into many and disjoyned ones as it were so many Troups and that in each Troup the particular Particles should take their places and cast themselves into such a figure as for Example the Bones being about 300 are formed of various sizes and shapes so situate and connected as to be subservient to many hundred Intentions and Uses and many of them conspire to one and the same Action this I say I cannot by any means conceive I might instance in all the Homogeneous Parts of the body their Sites and Figures and ask by what imaginable laws of Motion their bulk figure situation and connexion can be made out What account can be given of the Valves of the Veins and Arteries of the heart and of the Veins elsewhere and of their situation of the figure and consistency of all the Humours and Membranes of the eye all conspiring and exactly fitted to the use of Seeing but I have touched upon that already and shall discourse of it largely afterward You will ask me who or what is the Operator in the Formation of the bodies of Man and other Animals I answer The sensitive Soul itself if it be a spiritual and immaterial Substance as I am inclineable to believe But if it be material and consequently the whole Animal but a mere Machine or Automaton as I can hardly admit then must we have recourse to a Plastick Nature That the Soul of Brutes is material and the whole Animal Soul and Body but a mere Machine is the Opinion publickly owned and declared of Des Cartes Gassendus Dr. Willis and others the same is also necessarily consequent upon the Doctrine of the Peripateticks viz. that the sensitive Soul is educed out of the Power of the Matter For nothing can be educed out of the matter but what was there before which must be either Matter or some Modification of it And therefore they cannot grant it to be a spiritual Substance unless they will assert it to be educed out of nothing This Opinion I say I can hardly digest I should rather think Animals to be endued with a lower Degree of Reason than that they are mere Machines I could instance in many Actions of Brutes that are hardly to be accounted for without Reason and Argumentation as that commonly noted of Dogs that running before their Masters they will stop at a divarication of the way till they see which hand their Masters will take and that when they have gotten a Prey which they fear their Masters will take from them they will run away and hide it and afterwards return to it and many the like Actions which I shall
bends forward as well as a Mans Knees which answer to it being the uppermost Joynt of our Legs and the like mutatis mutandis may be said of the Arms I shall not insist upon it II. The Body of Man may thence be proved to be the effect of Wisdom because there is nothing in it deficient nothing superfluous nothing but hath its End and Use so true are those Maximes we have already made use of Natura nihil facit frustra and Natura non abundat in superfluis nec deficit in necessariis no part that we can well spare The Eye cannot say to the Hand I have no need of thee nor the Head to the Feet I have no need of you 1. Cor. 12. 21. that I may usurp the Apostles similitude The Belly cannot quarrel with the Members nor they with the Belly for her seeming Sloth as they provide Meat for her so she concocts and distributes it to them Only it may be doubted to what use the Paps in Men should serve I answer partly for Ornament partly for a kind of conformity between the Sexes and partly to defend and cherish the Heart in some they contain Milk as in a Danish Family we read of in Bartholines Anatomical Observations However it follows not that they or any other parts of the Body are useless because we are ignorant Had we been born with a large Wen upon our Faces or a Bavarian Poke under our Chins or a great Bunch upon our Backs like Camels or any the like superfluous excrescency which should be not only useless but troublesome not only stand us in no stead but also be ill favoured to behold and burthensom to carry about then we might have had some pretence to doubt whether an intelligent and bountiful Creator had been our Architect for had the Body been made by chance it must in all likelyhood have had many of these superfluous and unnecessary Parts But now seeing there is none of our Members but hath its Place and Use none that we could spare or conveniently live without were it but those we account Excrements the Hair of our Heads or the Nails on our Fingers ends we must needs be mad or sottish if we can conceive any other than that an infinitely good and wise God was our Author and Former III. We may fetch an Argument of the Wisdom and Providence of God from the convenient situation and disposition of the Parts and Members of our Bodies They are seated most conveniently for Use for Ornament and for mutual Assistance First for Use So we see the Senses of such eminent Use for our well-being situate in the Head as Sentinels in a Watch-Tower to receive and conveigh to the Soul the impressions of external Objects Sensus autem interpretes ac nuntii rerum in capite tanquam in arce mirificè ad usus necessarios facti collati sunt Cic. de Nat. Deorum The Eye can more easily see things at a distance the Ear receive sounds from afar How could the Eye have been better placed either for Beauty and Ornament or for the Guidance and Direction of the whole Body As Cicero proceeds well Nam Oculi tanquam speculatores altissimum locum obtinent ex quo plurima conspicientes funguntur suo munere Et Aures quoe sonum recipere debent qui naturâ in sublime fertur rectè in altis corporum partibus collocatae sunt itemque Nares eò quò omnis odor ad superiora fertur rectè sursum sunt For the Eyes like Sentinels occupy the highest place from whence seeing many things they perform their functions And the Ears which are made for the reception of sounds which naturally are carried upwards are rightly placed in the uppermost parts of the Body also the Nostrils because all odors ascend are fitly situate in the superior parts I might instance in the other Members How could the Hands have been more conveniently placed for all sorts of Exercises and Works and for the guard and security of the Head and Principal Parts The Heart to dispense Life and Heat to the whole Body viz. near the Center and yet because it is harder for the Blood to ascend than descend somewhat nearer the Head It is also observable that the Sinks of the Body are removed as far from the Nose and Eyes as may be which Cicero takes notice of in the forementioned place Ut in Aedificiis Architecti avertunt ab Oculis Naribus Dominorum ea quae profluentia necessariò essent tetri aliquid habitura sic natura res similes procul amandavit à sensibus Secondly For Ornament What could have been better contrived than that those Members which are Pairs should stand by one another in equal altitude and answer on each side one to another And Thirdly For mutual Assistance We have before shewed how the Eye stands most conveniently for guiding the Hand and the Hand for defending the Eye and the like might be said of the other Parts they are so situaté as to afford direction and help one to another This will appear more clearly if we imagine any of the Members situate in contrary Places or Positions Had a mans Arms been fitted only to bend backwards behind him or his Legs only to move backwards what direction could his Eyes then have afforded him in working or walking or how could he then have fed himself nay had one Arm been made to bend forward and the other directly backward we had then lost half the use of them sith they could not have assisted one the other in any Action Take the Eyes or any other of the Organs of Sense and see if you can find any so convenient a seat for them in the whole Body as that they now possess Fourthly From the ample Provision that is made for the Defence and Security of the principal Parts Those are 1. The Heart which is the Fountain of Life and Vegetation Officina spirituum vitalium principium fons caloris nativi lucerna humidi radicalis and that I may speak with the Chymists ipse Sol microcosmi the very Sun of the microcosme or little World in which is contained that vital Flame or Heavenly Fire which Prometheus is fabled to have stole from Jupiter or as Aristotle phrases it that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divinum quid respondens elemento Stellarum This for more security is situate in the Center of the Trunk of the Body covered first with its own Membrane called Pericardium lodged within the soft Bed of the Lungs encompassed round with a double Fence 1. of firm Bones or Ribs to bear off blows 2. of thick Muscles and Skin besides the Arms conveniently placed to fence off any violence at a distance before it can approach to hurt it 2. The Brain which is the principle of all Sense and Motion the Fountain of the Animal Spirits the chief Seat and Palace Royal of the Soul upon whose security depends whatever Privilege belongs to us as
no use of respiration by the Lungs the Blood doth not all I may say not the greatest part of it flow through them but there are two Passages or Channels contrived one called the foramen ovale by which part of the Blood brought by the vena cava passeth immediately into the left Ventricle of the Heart without entring the right at all the other is a large arterial Channel passing from the pulmonary Artery immediately into the Aorta or great Artery which likewise derives part of the Blood thither without running at all into the Lungs These two are closed up soon after the Child is born when it breaths no more as I may so say by the Placenta uterina but respiration by the Lungs is needful for it It is here to be noted that though the Lungs be formed so soon as the other Parts yet during the abode of the foetus in the Womb they lie by as useless In like manner I have observed that in ruminating Creatures the three formost Stomachs not only during the continuance of the Young in the Womb but so long as it is fed with Milk are unemployed and useless the Milk passing immediately into the fourth Another Observation I shall add concerning Generation which is of some moment because it takes away some concessions of Naturalists that give countenance to the Atheists fictitious and ridiculous Account of the first production of Mankind and other Animals viz. that all sorts of Insects yea and some Quadrupeds too as Frogs and Mice are produced Spontaneously My Observation and Affirmation is that there is no such thing in Nature as Aequivocal or Spontaneous Generation but that all Animals as well small as great not excluding the vilest and most contemptible Insect are generated by Animal Parents of the same Species with themselves that noble Italian Vertuoso Francesco Redi having experimented that no putrified Flesh which one would think were the most likely of any thing will of itself if all Insects be carefully kept from it produce any The same Experiment I remember Doctor Wilkins late Bishop of Chester told me had been made by some of the Royal Society No instance against this Opinion doth so much puzzle me as Worms bred in the Intestines of Man and other Animals But seeing the round Worms do manifestly generate and probably the other kinds too it 's likely they come originally from Seed which how it was brought into the Guts may afterwards possibly be discovered Moreover I am inclinable to believe that all Plants too that themselves produce Seed which are all but some very imperfect ones which scarce deserve the name of Plants come of Seeds themselves For that great Naturalist Malpighius to make experiment whether Earth would of its self put forth Plants took some purposely digged out of a deep Place and put it into a Glass Vessel the top whereof he covered with Silk many times doubled and strained over it which would admit the Water and Air to pass through but exclude the least Seed that might be wafted by the Wind the event was that no Plant at all sprang up in it nor need we wonder how in a Ditch Bank or Grass-Plat newly dig'd or in the Fenbanks in the Isle of Ely Mustard should abundantly spring up where in the Memory of Man none had been known to grow for it might come of Seed which had lain there more than a Mans Age. Some of the Ancients mentioning some Seeds that retain their fecundity Forty Years As for the Mustard that sprung up in the Isle of Ely though there never had been any in that Country yet might it have been brought down in the Channels by the Floods and so being thrown up the Banks together with the Earth might germinate and grow there From this Discourse concerning the Body of Man I shall make Three Practical Inferences First Let us give thanks to Almighty God for the Perfection and Integrity of our Bodies It would not be amiss to put it into the Eucharistical parr of our daily Devotions We praise thee O God for the due Number Shape and Use of our Limbs and Senses and in general of all the Parts of our Bodies we bless thee for the sound and healthful Constitution of them It is thou that hast made us and not we our selves in thy Book were all our Members written The Mother that bears the Child in her Womb is not conscious to any thing that is done there she understands no more how the Infant is formed than itself doth But if God hath bestowed upon us any peculiar Gift or Endowment wherein we excel others as Strength or Beauty or Activity we ought to give him special thanks for it but not to think the better of our selves therefore or despise them that want it Now because these Bodily Perfections being common Blessings we are apt not at all to consider them or not to set a just value on them and because the worth of things is best discerned by their want it would be useful sometimes to imagine or suppose our selves by some accident to be depriv'd of one of our Limbs or Senses as a Hand or a Foot or an Eye for then we cannot but be sensible that we should be in worse condition than now we are and that we should soon find a difference between two Hands and one Hand two Eyes and one Eye and that two excel one as much in worth as they do in number and yet if we could spare the use of the lost part the deformity and unsightlyness of such a defect in the Body would alone be very grievous to us Again which is less suppose we only that our Bodies want of their just magnitude or that they or any of our Members are crooked or distorted or disproportionate to the rest either in excess or defect nay which is least of all that the due motion of any one part be perverted as but of the Eyes in squinting the Eye-lids in twinkling the Tongue in stammering these things are such Blemishes and Offences to us by making us Gazing-stocks to others and Objects of their Scorn and Derision that we could be content to part with a good part of our Estates to repair such defects or heal such Infirmities These things considered and duly weighed would surely be a great and effectual motive to excite in us Gratitude for this Integrity of our Bodies and to esteem it no small blessing I say a blessing and favor of God to us for some there be that want it and why might not we have been of that number God was no way obliged to bestow it upon us And as we are to give thanks for the Integrity of our Body so are we likewise for the Health of it and the sound Temper and Constitution of all its Parts and Humors Health being the principal blessing of this Life without which we cannot enjoy or take comfort in any thing besides Neither are we to give thanks alone