as to reject them should dare also to substitute in the room of them some new one of my own excogitation if not more perfect yet at least less culpable To these expecting Gentelmen therefore I say that much less of skill and strength being required to demolish than to build a Pigmy may be able to pull down what Giants have raised and that to form a true and complete definition of any the most obvious thing in Nature much more of Life which is extremly abstruse would puzzel a much stronger Brain than mine Well then may I be excused if conscious of my imparity to a task so desperate I forbear farther to expose my weakness by attempting it and choose rather to leave them to collect what my sentiments are of the nature of Life from my following discourse WHICH being designed only as a modest disquisition of the natural causes of Human Life I professedly pass by what that over-curiose nation of Scholemen impensly addicted to notions abstracted from all commerce with the Senses and to Speculations Metaphysical have delivered of the Life of Spirits of Angells Daemon's and other Beings of that kind subject neither to the Laws of Nature nor to the Empire of Fate And this I do because some of their Doctrines far transcend the capacity of my narrow Wit others seem more fine than useful and all are remote from my present institute I omit also what our equaly acute Dr. Glisson hath with admirable subtility of Wit and immense Labour of Meditation excogitated and not many Years before his Death divulged of the Energetic Life of Nature and its Faculties by virtue of which he supposed that even the most minute particles of this aspectable World do naturally perceive desire move themselves with Counsel and what is yet more wonderful frame Bodies for themselves to inhabit animate or inform them and perform other most noble operations Which I do not only because this opinion how favorable soever hath not yet been received as canonical by common assent of Philosophers but also because I humbly conceive it to be in all things the Name only excepted the same with that antique Dogma first delivered by Plato and after asserted by his Followers that all things in the Universe are Animate that is are naturally endowed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Sense and Self-motion which hath been sufficiently impugned by Aristotle Lucretius Gassendus and all others who have refuted Plato's Doctrine de Anima mundi upon which it is grounded Not that I reject this opinion of natural Sense or Perception attributed to all things but that I am not yet convinced of the truth of it Insipientis est aliis dogmata illa aut commendare aut convellere de quorum veritate ipsemet adhuc dubitat And well may I suspend my assent to this opinion which gives to things inanimate such Faculties which my Philosophy will not grant to any but rational Creatures Nor indeed would either Lucretius or Des Cartes For the former though according to the Epicurean Hypothesis which he in all things followed he attributes to Atoms or as he calls them Solida Primordia rerum a Spontaneous Mobility nevertheless denies that they are naturally moved with Knowledg or Design in these Verses Lib. 2. Nam neque consilio debent tardata morari Nec perscrutari primordia singula quaeque Ut videant qua quidque geratur cum ratione And the Later in one of his Epistles to Mersennus Epistol parte 2. epist. 44. where he strictly examines the Doctrine of a certain Monk that ascribed to even the most minute particles of Matter a Power of moving themselves and other ingenite propensions the very same I guess with those supposed to be inseparably conjoyn'd with Natural Perception plainly declares his Judgment of the unreasonableness thereof in these Words Non probo indivisibilia ista neque naturales quas illis tribuit propensiones istiusmodi enim propensiones absque intellectu concipere nequeo ne irrationalibus quidem animalibus tale quidquam tribuo Sed quicquid in illis appetitus aut propensiones vocamus per solas Mechanicae regulas explico These two praeliminary Advertisements premised I come into the direct way of my intended disquisition That the Life of Man doth both originally spring and perpetually depend from the intimate conjunction and union of his Reasonable Soul with his Body is one of those few Assertions in which all Divines and natural Philosophers unanimously agree And they have reason For while the rational Soul continues in the Body so long Life continues and when the same is separated from the Body in that very moment of Time Death succeeds Now this rational Soul being by most wise Men granted to be a pure Spirit or substance merely Spiritual it is from thence necessarily consequent that the Life of it is Substantial that is the very substance of it considered as Metaphysicians love to speak non in ordine ad esse per se sed in ordine ad operationes For we dull-brain'd Mortals to whom it is not granted to be able to conceive the nature of Beings purely Spiritual by notions adaequate to it according to the Module of our understanding distinguish even in Angels their subsistence Fundamental from their Energetic Nature although in reality both are the same substance but diversly considered For this substantial Life though it may be as to its Operations by the same Divine Power that gave it suspended cannot yet be wholly taken away so as that it should after continue to be a Spirit Because if a Spirit be supposed to be deprived of Life the very substance of it must also be supposed to be at the same time annihilated For who can conceive so gross a contradiction as a dead Angel The same may be as truly said also of a Rational Soul which is allowed to be a Spirit too Wherefore the Life of it is as I affirmed Substantial and Essential and consequently incapable to be taken away unless the Soul or Spirit it self be at the same time annihilated Which the Omnipotent Creator can indeed when he shall so please do but it doth not appear from any place of holy Scripture that he either hath done or ever will do it and therefore let no man doubt of the Immortality of his Soul Sic etenim lethi praeclusa ' st janua menti From this our fundamental position then that the Life of a Man is in his rational Soul essentially it follows of necessity that the same Life cannot be in his Body too essentially but by way of Participation or Communication Nor is it difficult to conceive in our mind that the Life of the Body being separable from it is only communicated to it or derived from another thing of a different Nature For if a substance essentially living be intimately united to another substance of its own nature void of Life the thing composed of those two substances so united must have Life but
prioris eligere sive exsugere Hisce tribus sententiis hîc valedico argumenta in quantum iis stabiliendis inserviant improbo similiter Corollaria si quae sint in quantum ab iis solis dependeant rejicio This Palinodia of his did I confess not a little surprize me when first I read it but my amazement lasted not long For when I had found that as to the Reasons inducing him to make that Recantation his silence had left me wholly in the dark and that in the lines immediately following he had subjoin'd this limitation of it Interim non nego quin detur verus succus nutritius à cerebro per nervos ad omnes partes spermaticas dispensatus aut quin sit subjectum spirituum animalium Sed aio generari hunc succum in solo cerebro inter corticem ejusdem medullam per viam secretionis sanguims mitiorem partem magisque spermaticam esse materiam c. I perceiv'd that though he had by his Authority shook some part he had not yet demolish'd the whole of that fair structure by himself formerly erected And I have reason to believe that he had never affirm'd that the true succus nutritius is deriv'd out of the bloud had not Fate thinking the honor he had before acquir'd by other noble discoveries in Nature sufficient to give him immortal renown reserv'd the glory of farther revealing the mysterie of Nutrition for Sr. George Ent. Who in his incomparable Antidiatriba lately publish'd hath eternally obliged the world by declaring his sentiments concerning the Matter conditions and generation of the true succus nutritius as also concerning the Manner and Wayes by which the same is distributed to all parts of the body thence to be recruited To that Aphoristical Book therefore I referr all those of my Auditors who desire to be more fully satisfied in this matter and so conclude this my imperfect History of Nutrition ¶ PRAELECTIO IV. Of Life THe Climax or Scale of Nature by which she advances in her Works from less to greater Dignity and Perfection and distinguishes all things Animate into three general Orders consisteth as ye well know of only three Rungs or Degrees of which the first is simple Vegetation to which all Plants are confined the second Sense which includes Vegetation and is the Ne ultra to all brute Animals the third Reason which comprehends both Vegetation and Sense as inferior and subordinate and Constitutes the royal Praerogative of Man above all his fellow Creatures that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 composed of Soul and Body To each of these degrees LIFE is annext for even Plants themselves are by Universal consent of Mankind allowed to live and dye as well as Sensitive and Rational Creatures and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic Plato in Timaeo quicquid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. vivendi particeps est jure Sane 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi vitale dixeris id est animal rectissimè appellari potest Insunt autem plantis ipsis facultates vivendi nutriendi crescendi suique simile producendi Sic etiam Arist. de gen Animal l. 2. c. i. Sive planta sive Animal est inquit aeque omnibus inest quod vim habet vegetandi sive nutriendi c. but not Life of one and the same kind for the Life of Brutes is more Energetic and consequently more Noble than the Life of Plants and the Life of Man much more Noble than that of Brutes And this of absolute Necessity because a sensitive Soul is endowed with more and higher Faculties or Powers than a Vegetative and a rational Soul with more and more excellent than a Sensitive and therefore the Life which results from the Conjunction of either of these Souls with its proper Body conveniently Organiz'd must be accordingly different from the Life of the other two Which Aristotle well understanding first defines Life in general to be Animae ejusque organici corporis per conjunctionem unionem utriusque actus Vigor and then teaches particularly that Plants live by the Sole act of their vegetant Soul namely by Nutrition Brute Animals by the Sole act of their Sentient which includes the former and Man by the act of Reason or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is by Cogitation or Ratiocination which as Supreme praesupposes both Vegetation and Sension Let this Scale of Nature then be our Method Let us who have proposed to ourselves to follow her steps as near as our poreblind Reason shall permit us ascend from the Life of Vegetation to the Life of Sense from the Life of Plants to that of Animals and among them of the most perfect Animal Man himself who is our principal Subject And that we may the more directly conduct our present inquiries by the clew of her observable operations let us consider diligently 1 What Life is 2 Whence it originally proceeds 3 What is the Subject wherein it primarily Subsists 4 how it is perpetually generated a new from the first moment of its accension to that of its total extinction or period 5 how it is continually diffused or Communicated from its Fountain to all parts of the Body But because the Fundament of right Ratiocination is placed in the true signification of Names 't is therefore requisite that before I proceed to investigate the nature and formal reason of Life I should recount and explain the various Names by which it hath been call'd not only to prevent Ambiguity by fixing their signification but also in hope of gaining from them somewhat of Light toward my Disquisition From Holy Scriptures then I begin both from the Veneration due to those Divine Oracles and because they are of all Books whatsoever most likely to afford me hints of the abstruse thing after which I am serching The Writer of the Book of Genesis in the short History of Mans Creation Cap. 2. v. 7. expresses the manner of it in these Words according to the Graec Text of the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which the Vulgar La in version renders thus Formavit igitur Dominus Deus hominem de limo terrae inspiravit in faciem ejus Spiraculum vitae factus est homo in animam viventem and our latest Translation thus And the Lord God formed Man of the Dust of the Earth and breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life and Man became a living Soul Here then by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiraculum vitae Life is signified but whether the Author by those Words intimated or not that God kindled Life in the Heart of Adam by a vital Breath blown by his Nostrils into his Blood as fire is propagated by blowing or whether he meant only that God gave to Adam Life as some have interpreted them is not for me who pretend not to interpretation of sacred Writ to determine Nevertheless I hope I shall not be thought to usurp the Province of
Theologues if I take the innocent liberty of believing that this admirable act of Vivification done by the Omnipotent Creator upon Adam was done by way of Inspiration by which according to the genuine and proper Sense of the word is to be understood a blowing in of some subtil and energetic substance into a place where before it was not viz. into the Nostrils of the human Body newly formed of the Dust of the Earth Which will perhaps be found somewhat the more reasonable if the manner and circumstances of the miraculous Revivification of the good Shunamites Son by the Prophet Elisha Kings 2. Cap. 4. be well considered For we read that after the Prophet had layn some time and much bestirred himself upon the Body of the dead Child putting his Mouth upon his Mouth and his Eyes upon his Eyes and his Hands upon his Hands and stretched himself again and again upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Flesh of the Child waxed warm and he Neesed seven times and opened his Eyes So that from thence it seems inferrible that as the first Man was inlivened so this Child was revived by Inspiration Both acts doubtless were done miraculously because by the same divine Agent God yet with this difference that the former was performed immediately by God himself the latter mediately by his Instrument the Prophet to whose Breath blown into the Childs Mouth and to whose Heat communicated to the Childs Flesh and consequently to his Blood the Author of Life was pleased to give a Virtue so Efficacious as to restore and renovate the Vital motions of the Blood Heart Lungs and Diaphragm of the Child that had been stopped by the cold Hand of Death and those Motions being recommenced and the Brain reinvigorated by a fresh influx of arterial Blood replete with vital Spirits by strong contraction of its Membranes as it were by a Critical Motion expell'd the material and conjunct cause of the Disease by Sternutation seven times repeted before the Child opened his Eyes For that the Seat of that most acute Disease was in the Brain is manifest even from the Childs complaint to his Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Head my Head I am not ignorant there are some who expresly affirm that the word inspiration is in sacred Scriptures used only Metaphoricaly whether truly or not let Divines dispute Meanwhile I am certain the word Spirit upon which inspiration depends is in many places of the holy Bible used to express Life In Job c. 27. v. 3 quamdiu spiritus Dei est in naribus meis signifies so long as I shall live or have Life And in Ezech c. 1. v. 20. Spiritus vitae erat in rotis seems to me to say the Wheels were living Other Instances I might easily collect if these were not sufficient to my Scope and if I were not obliged to hasten to other appellations and Characters of Life less liable to controversy and used by Philosophers By Hippocrates Life is per periphrasin call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ignis ingenitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accensio animae in corde by Aristotle The Hebrews express it sometimes by nephesch sometimes by neschama both which words indifferently signifie Soul or Life The Graecians whose Language is more copiose name it either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to Breath or refrigerate by blowing nor unfitly because to Breath or respire is proper to living Creatures or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aliàs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which Hesychius addeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latines commonly Vita which is deflected from the Graec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by cutting off the Vowel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and changing b into v as is usually done and sometimes Anima whch is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Wind an Etymology owned by Horace himself in this odd exprssion of his Impellunt animae lintea Thraciae in Carmin lib. 4. Ode 12. and before him by Lucretius lib. 6. in these Words Ventus ubi atque animae subitò vis maxima quaedam Aut extrinsecus aut ipsa ab tellure coorta Who often calls the Soul Ventum Vitalem FROM the various Names we come to some few Notions that eminent Philosophers have formed to themselves of Life such as among many others seem to me more memorable than the rest as well for the credit they have obtained in the Schools as for the great renown of their Authors Cardanus a man of admirable Subtility of Wit in his lucid intervalls defines Life to be the Operation or action of the Soul and as Iul. Scaliger in Exercit. 102 Sect. 5. not without Signs of envy observes hath therein many Followers In the number of whom I must not list my self 1 because if Life be an action of the Soul the Body cannot be truly said to live 2 if Life be an action there must be an action of an action for the actions of Life in Man are as Arist 2. de anima truly teaches to understand to have Sense to move voluntarily to be nourished to speak c. and to suppose an action of an action is manifestly absurd In this point therefore I declare my self to be no disciple of Cardans Fernelius equal to Cardan both in time and fame nor inferior in Sagacity of Spirit defines life thus Est Animantium vita facultatum actionumque omnium conservatio But this definition is too narrow for the thing as taking no notice of the Body which yet is participant of Life and upon whose Organs the exercise of all the faculties and actions of the Soul depends Ludovicus Vives describes Life to be Conservatio instrumentorum quibus anima in corpore utitur because saith he when the instruments are corrupted life ceaseth But neither in this description is it safe to acquiesce 1 because Life is conserved not so much by the integrity of the Instruments as by the Faculties which are before the Instruments and upon which all the Functions proximly depend 2 The conservation of the Instruments doth not make or constitute Life but rather follow it as an effect 3 if Life were only the conservation of the Instruments then would it necessarily follow that part of Life is lost or destroyed when any of the Instruments are corrupted or cut off which is absurd life being indivisible and daily experience attesting that one or more of the Organs of the Body as Hands Feet c may be cut off without diminution of Life Which even Lucretius himself acknowledged in these elegant Verses At manet in vita cui mens animusque remansit Quamvis est circum-caesis lacer undique membris Truncus ademptâ animâ circum membrisque remotis Vivit aetherias vitaleis suscipit auras c. Lib. 3. Neither of these three Select Definitions proving in all points absolute and Scientific some here perhaps expect that I who am so bold
so that the first part live substantially or by virtue of its Essence the other only by participation of that essential Life Certain therefore it is and evident that the Life of a Man comes immediately from and depends upon the Presence of his rational Soul in his Body Which is the Truth we sought after I say immediately because the Life of the Soul is originally from God who created it a living Substance Of the Souls of Brute Animals the same may not be affirmed For though it be true indeed that their Souls also are the Principle or Fountain whence Life is communicated to the Bodies they inform yet 't is equally true that these Souls being Material or Corporeal their Life cannot be essential to the matter of which they are composed but flows from and depends upon the determinate Modification of that matter from which their Souls Result So that in Brutes as it is the Mode or manner of the disposition of the Matter not simply the matter it self that constitutes the Soul So it is the Hypostasis or subsistence of the same Mode upon which alone the Life that is the Act Energy and Vigor of the Soul depends No wonder then if we believe the Souls of all Brutes to be by their nature Mortal and to be actually dissolved together with their Bodies by Death That I may explain what I understand by the Modification of the matter which is here supposed to constitute the Soul of a Brute give me leave in this place to make a short halt for it is not a digression while I briefly declare what my sentiments are concerning the Souls of Brutes I humbly and with Submission to wiser Heads conceive 1 That the diversity of kinds observed among Brutes proceeds immediately from the divers Modifications of the common matter of their Souls and the respectively divers Organizations of their Bodies from both which by admirable artifice conjoyned and united into one complex System or Machine various faculties and proprieties must of necessity result by which those several kinds are among themselves distinguished 2 That the Specific or determinate Modification of the Soul and respective Organization of the Body in every distinct kind is to be wholly attributed to the Plastic virtue or formative Power innate and affixed to the Seed of the Generants 3 That this Plastic virtue is originally founded in the still efficacious Fiat pronounced in the act of Creation by the Divine Architect of all things who commanding all Animals to increase and multiply gave them at the same time power to fulfill that Command by endowing their Seed with an active Principle to form and impressing upon that Agent a certain idea or exemplar according to which it is obliged and directed how to form and not otherwise provided the Matter upon which it operates be obedient and susceptible of that Idea So that the Idea first conceived in the Divine Intellect and then prescribed as a Pattern to the Plastic Spirit with which the genital matter is impregnated being not in all kinds nay not in any two kinds of Animals one and the same but a peculiar Idea assigned to each kind it comes to pass that the Plastic Spirit thus directed regulated and confined by the Law of Nature doth out of that genital matter form the Soul and Organize the Body of every Brute Animal of any one of those numerous kinds exactly according to the prototype of that kind And by this means I conceive all Brutes to be generated both Soul and Body and their distinct Species without confusion or innovation conserved throughout all ages If I conceive amiss be pleased to consider that many excellent Wits treating of the same Subject have done so before me and that the Theorem it self is so abstruse that as Cicero 2. Tusculan said of the various Opinions of Philosophers about the nature of a Soul Harum Sententiarum quae verasit Deus aliquis viderit quae verisimillima magna quaestio est so may I say Man may dispute what is most probable but God alone knows what is true concerning the Souls of Beasts and their production Notwithstanding this darkness of my way I must adventure to go a little farther in it and endevor to explain 1 What the Substance of a Sensitive Soul is or of what Particles it is contexed 2 In what the Life or Act and Vigor of it consisteth and 3 What are the primary Functions and Operations of it As to the First then it seems highly probable that a Sensitive Soul is not a pure Spirit such as the rational Soul of Man is but a meer Body yet a most subtile and extremely thin one as being context of most minute and most subtile Corpuscules or Particles For if it were Incorporeal it could neither act nor suffer in the Body which it animate's or informs not Act because it could not touch any part not Suffer because it could not be touch't by any part of the Body But that it doth both act and suffer in the Body is most evident from its Sensations of external Objects from its affects or Passions consequent to those Sensations from the motions it causeth in the Members respective to those Passions and from its Union and consension with the Body in all things I call it therefore a Body and say that it is composed or by an admirable contexture made up of most thin and most subtile Particles such perhaps as are most smooth and most round like those of Flame or Heat because otherwise it could not diffuse it self so swiftly through nor cohere within with the whole Body and all parts of it and because when it departs out of the Body the Body is not perceived to lose any the least thing of its former Bulk Figure or Weight no more than a Vessel of Wine loses by the exhalation of its Spirits or a piece of Amber-Grise loses by emission of its Odor So that we may imagine that if the whole sensitive Soul of an Elephant were conglomerated or condensed it might be contained in a place no bigger than a Cherry-stone These constituent particles or Elements of a Sensitive Soul I suppose to be for the most part analogous to the nature of Fire because the natural heat of all Animals comes from the Soul and their Life consisteth in that Heat I also suppose them to be at first conteined in the genital matter the most spirituose or active particles of which are in the act of formation by the Plastic Virtue Selected Disposed Formed and as it were contexed into a little Soul and the grosser or less agil framed by degrees into an organical Body of competent dimensions and of Figure answerable to the Specific Idea by the Divine Creator pre-ordained and assigned to that Species to which the Generants belong And this I suppose because the brisk vigorous and swift motions of the Soul in the Body require it to be composed of particles most subtile and active and because as well
the Soul as the Body is by all Philosophers granted to be formed of the seminal matter and because otherwise Brutes cannot be properly said to generate their like in Specie and by consequence the Power to that end entailed upon them by the first and universal command of God increscite ac multiplicamini would be rendr'd of no effect I farther suppose that this Embryon Soul after this manner newly formed or as it were kindled is dayly augmented by accession and assimilation of like Particles as the Body is augmented out of the grosser and less fugitive Parts of the Aliment till both Soul and Body have attain'd to the standard of Maturity or perfection of growth thenceforth slowly declining in Vigor by degrees answerable to those of their ascent till they arrive at their final Period Death which dissolving the system or contexture of the Soul leaves the Particles of which it was composed to fly away and vanish into Aire and the Body to be resolved into its first Principles by slower corruption For Nutrition and Augmentation are as yesterday I proved Operations of the Plastic Virtue continually reforming the whole Animal and the duration or subsistence of the Soul is the Vinculum of the whole composition or concretion So that the Soul may be by an apposite Metaphor called the Salt or Condiment that preserves the fleshy parts of the Body from putrefaction as the Spirits of Wine preserve the whole Mass of Liquor through which they are diffused from losing its Vigor and generose quality and according to that oraculous saying of Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soul is always generated anew till Death Which very thing is argument enough to evince that if it be not really a most thin Flame finer and more gentle than that arising from the purest Spirit of Wine burning within a paper Lantern it is at least very like to Flame For as this so that is every moment regenerated at once perishing and reviving perishing by continual dissipation of some Particles and reviving by continual accension of others out of its proper aliment the more subtile and sulphureous Particles of the Blood serving to repair the decays of the Soul as the grosser Particles of the succus nutritius are convenient to recruit the exhausted substance of the Body So that it was not without reason that Democritus Epicurus Lucretius and Hippocrates among the Antients and among the Moderns Fernelius Heurnius Cartesius Hogelandus Honoratus Faber and Dr. Willis held the Soul of a Brute to be of a firy substance and that Aristotle himself called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the Ld. Chancellor Bacon natural Hist. centur 7. makes one of the two radical differences between Plants and Animals to consist in this that the Spirits of living Creatures hold more of Flame Finally I conceive that this sensitive Soul however it be a thing mixt or composed of Particles among themselves in Magnitude Figure Position and Motion somwhat various is notwithstanding by admirable Artifice so constituted and the parts of it so contemperate and context that it is made one most thin and yet continued and coherent substance diffused through the whole Body Nor can its component Particles while it subsists in the Body be dissociated otherwise than by their own evolation which is instantly supplied by the accession and unition of others no more than the natural smell colour or tast can be separated from an Apple Peach or any other Fruit. This universal diffusion of it through the Body is what the Ld. Chancellor Bacon calls Branching of the Spirits in Nat. Hist. Cent. 7. Paragraph 1 where he saith the Spirits of things Animate are all continued with themselves and branched in Veins and secret Canales as Blood is and what Dr. Willis calls Coextension of the Soul to all parts of the Body Granting then that this most thin continued and diffused Substance is conteined in the Body and as it were coherent with the same thereby sustained and bounded we may with the more probability conceive that it is to the Body the cause of all the Faculties Actions Passions and Motions belonging to its Nature as the Organ of such a Soul that it keeps the Body together at once both conserving actuating managing and governing it and that it can be no more separated from the Body without the dissolution thereof than the Odor can be separated from Frankincense without destroying the nature of it And this I think sufficient to explain what I conceive of the first quaestion proposed viz. of what Substance the Soul of a Brute is and of what Particles composed As to the Second viz. wherein the Life of such a Soul doth consist it seems to me probable that since Life according to the general notion of it is nothing but Usura quaedam vigoris mobilitatisque facultatum activarum ejus rei cui inest the Life of a sensitive Soul is immediately founded in a certain Motion of the active and spirituose Particles of which it is composed as the Life of an Animal consisteth in the continuation of the same determinate Motion of those Spirits by which it was at first kindled and of the actual exercise of the Faculties that emerge or result from the union of the Soul with its Body by the Fabrick of the various Organs thereof adapted to perform all the various Functions Offices and Actions requisite to consummate the nature of such an Animal in Specie What kind of Motion that is in which as in its Origine I conceive this Life to be founded I shall by and by declare when I come to enquire what is the immediate Subject or Seat of Life having first endeavor'd to solve the Third Question proposed viz. what are the principal Faculties and Operations of a sensitive Soul These then are as ye well know all comprehended in Life Sense and motion Animal of which I shall here consider only the Second reserving the First till by and by and the Last till the Clew of my method hath brought me to treat of it in its proper place As to the Faculty of Sense therefore which constitutes the chief difference between living Creatures and things inanimate which Lucretius elegantly call's animam ipsius animae and the extinction or total privation of which is Death since I have supposed a sensitive Soul to be Material or Corporeal I must seek for this noble Power whereby she is qualified not only to perceive external Objects but to be also conscious of all her Perceptions in Matter after a certain peculiar manner so or so disposed or modified and in nothing else lest I recede from that supposition But in what matter is it most likely to be found whatsoever the determinate modification requisite to create such a Power shall at length be imagined to be in the Matter of the Soul herself or in that of the Body she animates Truly if we distinctly examine either the Soul or Body of a Brute as
and deep Vallies where it is kept in on both sides and wheel'd about into eddies or Whirle-Winds 5 In the very manner of Ustion or burning which is always transacted through the minute Pores of the Body burnt so that Ustion doth always undermine and penetrate and prick as if it were done by the points of a great many Needles Thence it seems to come also that Aqua Fortis Chrysulca and other dissolving Liquors if proportionate to the Body on which they act do the work of Fire by their penetrating pungent and corroding Motions PROPOS IV. That this expansive repuls'd alternative and penetrating Motion requisite to the generation of Heat ought to be also rapid and to be made by Particles minute indeed but not reduced to extreme subtilty THe verity of this proposition may be collected 1 From a comparation of the works of Fire with the works of Time or Age. For Age dries consumes undermines and incinerates no less than Fire yea far more subtilly but because the motion that causes these effects is both very slow and performed by Particles extremely minute therefore no sensible Heat is thereby produced 2 from comparing the dissolution of Gold with that of Iron the first in Aqua Regis the other in Aqua Fortis For Gold is dissolved calmly without tumult or effervescence raised in the dissolvent Iron not without vehement excitation of Heat probably because in Gold the ingress of the Water of Separation is slow mild and subtilly insinuating and the yeilding of the parts of the Gold easy but in Iron the ingress is rough difficult and with conflict the parts of the Iron with greater obstinacy resisting the motion of the dissolvent 3 From Gangrens and Mortifications which invade and spread without inducing much either of heat or pain by reason the motion of putrefaction is both slow and performed by Particles extremely subtil otherwise it would certainly cause Pain in the part affected Now from these Propositions the three latter of which are certain necessary Limitations of the first we may deduce this genuine conclusion That Heat is a certain Motion expansive checkt or repuls'd striving quickned or incited by opposition perform'd by minute Particles and with conflict and some impetuosity Which to me I declare seems to be so perspicuous and convincing that I dare promise that if any man be able to excite a Motion tending to dilatation or expansion of the Movent and then to repress that motion so as the dilatation may not proceed equally and uniformly but prevail and be repulsed alternately he shall thereby most certainly generate Heat in the Body whose parts are so moved of what kind or constitution soever the Body shall be For whether it be a Body Elementary as they speak or luminose or opaque rare or dense locally expansed or contein'd within the bounds of its first dimensions tending to dissolution or remaining in its stare whether it be Animal Vegetable or Mineral Water or Oyl or Aire or any other substance susceptive of the Motion described it will make no difference as to the effect aimed at the production of actual Heat Why then should I not believe that Nature hath instituted such an actual Motion or Heat in the Blood of Animals that Life Original might be therein perpetually generated since to make that actual Heat also Vital nothing more is required as I said before but that it arise from an internal Principle or Mover viz. the vital Spirits ingenite in the Blood and that it be amicable benign and placid as in the State of Health it always is and since both those requisite conditions or qualifications are found in the motion of the Blood If in the assertion of the precedent Propositions or in the deduction of my conclusion from them I have from weakness of Judgment admitted any Paralogism I shall receive the discovery thereof as a singular favor from any man of greater perspicacity and more skilful in the art of reasoning rightly and will ingenuously acknowledg and retract my error Meanwhile I acquiesce in this perswasion that the vital Heat of Animals is an expansive Motion of the Spirits of the Blood somewhat checkt or repulsed but still endevoring with sufficient force and alternately prevailing which I owe partly to the Ld. Chancellor Bacon in novo Organo ubi agit de praerogativis instantiarum in vindemiatione 1. partly to his equal sectator Dr. Glisson who had the felicity to improve whatsoever he had borrowed and to raise illustrous Theories from obscure hints But hold a little and give me space to reflect upon what I have lately said Have I not in this place incurred the danger of being accused of contradicting myself 'T is not half an Hour since I declared my assent to that common Doctrine of all Theologs and most Philosophers that the Life of a Man doth originally spring from and perpetually depend upon the union of his rational Soul with his Body And now I affirm that the Life of all Animals Man himself not excepted consists in the expansive motion of the Spirits in their Blood Are not these two assertions to be numbred among 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things inconsistent yea manifestly repugnant each to the other If either of them be true is not the other necessarily false To obviate this formidable accusation I say that these two positions though seemingly opposite are yet really capable of reconciliation each to the other and by consequence both may be true For 1 well known it is to all versed in the Jewish Commentaries upon the Pentateuch that the most learned Rabbins interpreting these words in the History of Mans Creation Deus inspiravit in faciem hominis spiraculum vitae to shew the excellency of Man above all his fellow Creatures give this Paraphrase upon them Homini Deus in creatione imaginem suam indidit inspiravit halitum vitae duplicis mortalis immortalis So that according to the Sense of this Paraphrase at least if I understand it rightly God was pleased to give to Man a double Life not two lives successive one before Death the other after but two conjoyn'd in the Body one Immortal which can be no other but that which is essential to the rational Soul and communicated to the Body by virtue of the intimate union of those two so different substances the other Mortal common to Brutes also and extinguishable by death which I deduce from the expansive motion of the Spirits of the Blood Nor hath this interpretation of the Iewish Doctors been for ought I know rejected by the Christian Scholes as unsound much less as Heretical and therefore I humbly conceive it is not unlawful for me to embrace it 2 That in this Life every individual Man hath also two distinct Souls one Rational by which he is made a reasonable Creature the other Sensitive by virtue of which he becomes a Sensitive Animal and that these are coexistent conjunct and cooperating in him untill death which
be still in its Youth far short of Maturity and Perfection There are yet alas terrae incognitae in the Lesser World as well as in the Greater the Island of the Brain the Isthmus of the Spleen the Streights of the Renes Succenturiati and some other Glandules the Northeast passage of the drink from the Stomach to the Kidnies and many other things remain to be farther inquir'd into by us and perhaps by Posterity also In fine this Simple Anatomy is a study so abstruse and difficult and withal so vast and diffuse that the last complement of it cannot with reason be expected from the diligence of any one Man how sagacious and industrious soever 'T is therefore seriously to be wish'd that the work were so divided among those curious Wits that are by secret instinct disposed to digg in this mine of knowledge as that every one might take to his share some one single part of those that are not yet fully explain'd and do his best devoirs to explore and demonstrate the whole Mechanic frame of it If this were done doubtless we should in few years find a very considerable Accession made to the late inventions in Mans body and with more justice than now we can approve the Lord Verulam ' s opinion that Simple Anatomy is alredy arriv'd at Perfection To advance this so noble so useful Art of Anatomy and accelerate its progress toward Consummation that so the Pathologic part of Medicine being by degrees rais'd from the darkness of uncertain Conjectures to the light of even sensible Demonstrations the infirmities of Mens bodies may at length be more certainly and easily cured their pains and torments sooner eas'd and their Lives prolong'd to this Noble End I say this Magnificent THEATRE wherein we now sit hath been with so great cost and art erected by the Generose FOUNDERS whose private Munificence exceeding that of Kings admits of no rival but the Wisdom that directed it whose large hearts were at the same time fill'd with Charity toward all Mankind of the present Age and with Providence for the relief of all in Ages to come Among these Gratitude it self exacts that I should with singular honor mention our Principal Benefactor Sr. JOHN CUTLER a Person to whom God hath given that double blessing of great Riches and as great Prudence how to use them to the noblest of Human Ends the Public Good and who having no Augustus to favor and assist his Beneficence is by so much a greater Patron to Learning than Mecaenas was Doth any here think that this stream of His Bounty might have been deriv'd upon some other ground more fruitful of benefits than this Garden of Philosophy Let me to undeceive that man advise him seriously to consider first that excellent sentence of Pythagoras to whom all Philosophers ow that modest name that there are two things which most ennoble Man and raise him up to a resemblance of the Divine Nature namely to know truth and to do good and then that there is no Human Science that doth either more gratifie and enrich the Understanding with variety of choice and useful truths or more enable a Generose Mind to exercise its Faculties to the good and benefit of others than that of Anatomy as it is a principal fundament of Medicine doth For both these are certain and evident Verities and after due consideration of them no man can longer doubt that he who placeth his Munificence upon erecting an Anatomic Theatre for advancement of the Art of Healing the Sick doth a Work as conducive both to the Glory of God and to the Common Good of Mankind as he that builds a Church or as he that founds and endows an Hospital I say to the Glory of God because I am taught not only by Galen 3. de usu partium that the discerning ones self and discovering to others the Perfections of God displaid in His Creatures is a more acceptable act of Religion than the burning of Sacrifices or perfumes upon His Altars nor only by Trismegistus in Asclepium cap. 15. that the thanks and praises of Men are the most grateful incense that can be offer'd up to God but even by God Himself in His Written Word that he who sacrificeth Praise for so 't is in the Original honors Him I say to the common Good of Mankind as well because the Necessity of Medicine is Universal so that even Kings themselves are sometimes forced to obey the precepts of Physicians when the pains they feel assure them that a Crown cannot mitigate the Head-ake nor an Army deliver from the horrors of a Fever nor the Roial Garter drive away the torments of the Gout as because to heal the sick is by so much a nobler act of Charity than to feed the Hungry or cloth the Naked by how much Intellectual Powers of the Mind are both more difficult to be attain'd and more Excellent in their nature than the transitory gifts of Fortune Riches many times come easily and unexpected even to Men ignorant of the right use of them the Art of Healing is never acquir'd but by hard anxious and long study and by accurate Observations Manifest therefore it is that whosoever by his Munificence contributes to the advancement of this so difficult so noble so universally useful Art doth thereby signalize both his Piety toward God and his Charity toward Men in a way most acceptable to Him most beneficial to them More much more I would say in Commemoration of this Worthy Knight ' s Exemplary Bounty but that I know that to him it is far more grateful to conferr Benefits than to receive Acknowledgments and that this very Fabrick hath alredy rais'd him as above all Envy so above all Praises The same will I prophesie remain a perpetual Moniment of his Heroic Zeal for the promotion of Natural Science and recommend his Name to all posterity For Fame built upon Universal Beneficence cannot but be immortal because it can be no mans interest to suppress it and all are by gratitude obliged to propagate it Some Great Men as the Vulgar call them hunt after Renown by enlarging Empires and Kingdoms some by conducting mighty Armies and fighting bloudy Battles others again by erecting Pyramids massy Tombs and other the like Pageants of human injustice pride or cruelty but these alas all these persue only flying shadows and either the gulph of Oblivion will soon swallov them down as ignoble and obscure or if any memory of them chance to survive their funerals 't will be conjoin'd with contempt and detestation Quae saxo struuntur saith Tacitus Annal. lib. 4. si iudicium posterorum in odium vertit pro sepulchris spernuntur Only those happy Men shall florish in the esteem and veneration of all future Generations who have acquir'd fame and honor by doing good This therefore is true Glory and of this our Noble Benefactor of whom I speak may rest secure Multos veterum velut inglorios ignobiles
namely into bones cartilages ligaments tendons membranes fibres c. So that all the Organs are at length compos'd of dissimilar parts by wonderful artifice context without the least of confusion or incongruity Which deserves to be reckon'd the seventh Act. 8. In that work of Organization 't is credible the inimitable Artist divides without section only by terminating the parts and unites without glew or cement only by continuing them to the common term or bounds which depends more upon union of matter than upon union of nature By these admirable artifices of Division and Unition the Plastic Spirit perforates separates conjoins cements the yet fluid at least soft Stamina of the parts where how and as often as need requires it deduces and runns out their Rivulets terminated in the fluid matter as by chanels it preserves from confusion the two different Colliquamenta and the Yolk divided as it were by partitions it so distinguishes and disterminates even contiguous and semblable parts that they may be diversly moved at the same time without interfering or impediment and each yield to other when occasion requires and thus almost all fibres very many membranes and in many sorts of Animals the Lobes of the Lungs and Liver and the Cartilages mutually touching each other in the joints c. are divided among themselves In a word by these wayes and degrees here by me from Malpighius his Microscopical Observations collected and rudely described it seems most probable that the Embryo is form'd augmented and finish'd in an Egg. Now therefore that we may accommodate this Epitome to our present Argument if this be the method and process that Nature uses in the Generation of Oviparous Animals and if she uses the like in the production of Viviparous also as Dr. Harvies observations and our own assure us that she doth we may safely conclude that Human Embryons are in like manner form'd augmented and finish'd by one and the same Plastic Spirit out of one and the same matter the Colliquamentum Quod er at probandum I add that the same Plastic Spirit remaining and working within us through the whole course of our life from our very first formation to our death doth in the same manner perpetually regenerate us out of a liquor analogous to the white of an Egg by transmuting the same into the substance of the solid parts of our body For as I said before Nutrition is necessary to all Animals not only in respect of the Augmentation of their parts while they are little Embryons but also in respect of their Conservation after during life because their bodies being in a natural consumption or exhaustion would inevitably be soon resolv'd into their first elements unless the providence of Nature had ordain'd a continual renovation or reparation of the parts by substitution and assimilation of fresh matter in the room of those particles dispers'd and consum'd Having therefore to some degree of probability explain'd the former necessity of Nutrition and the causes of it my next business must be to inquire into the Later Which that I may the more effectually do I find my self obliged to begin my scrutiny from the Causes of the perpetual Decay or Depredation of the substance of our bodies viz. the Efficient or Depraedator and the Matter or substance thereby consum'd and the Manner how The Depraedator then or Efficient cause of the perpetual consumtion of our bodies seems to be what all Philosophers unanimously hold it to be the Vital Heat of the bloud therein first kindled by the Plastic Spirit continually renew'd by the Vital Spirit and by the arteries diffus'd to all parts of the body that they may thereby be warm'd cherish'd and enliven'd This Lar familiaris or Vital Heat continually glowing within us and principally in the Ventricles of the Heart call'd by Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ingenitus ignis by Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accensio animae in corde and flamma Biolychnii the flame of the Lamp of Life by others and by others again ignea pars Animae Sensitivae is what Physicians generally have heretofore understood by Calidum innatum tho' they seem to have had but an obscure and inadaequate notion of the thing it self as I hope to evince when I shall come to inquire what life is and upon what it chiefly depends Meanwhile supposing it to be an Actual Heat consisting in a certain motion of the various particles of the bloud and in some degree analogous to fire or flame I cannot conceive how 't is possible for it to subsist or continue for so much as one moment of time unless it be maintain'd by convenient fewel which is thereby uncessantly fed upon and by degrees consum'd for it is of the nature of all fire how gentle or mild soever to generate and conserve it self only by preying upon and destroying the matter in which it is generated This Vital Heat therefore without intermission agitating dissolving and consuming the minute and most easily exsoluble particles of the body must be the Depraedator here sought after So that in truth we have one and the same cause both of our life and of our death or to speak more properly our very life is nothing but a continual death and we live because we die For we live so long as while this internal Vestal Heat is kept glowing in the bloud and when it ceases to glow either from want of convenient sustenance or by violent suffocation life is instantly extinguish'd So true even in this natural sense is that Distich of Euripides Quis novit autem an vivere hoc sit emori An emori hoc sit quod vocamus vivere The Matter consum'd I humbly conceive to be for the greatest part the fluid parts of the body chiefly the bloud and spirits which are most easily exsoluble and somewhat tho' but little of the substance also of the solid parts For Experience teaches that divers Animals Bears Dormice Swallows c. sleep the whole Winter without receiving any supply of aliment and yet have all the solid parts of their bodies as large and firm when they awake again in the Spring as when they first betook themselves to their dens or dormitories and the Reason hereof seems to be this that their Vital Heat being all that time calm and gentle consumes their bloud and spirits but slowly and very little of their solid parts as a lamp burns long when the oyl that feeds it is much and the flame but little and calm We have Examples also of Leucophlegmatic Virgins who from a gradual decay of Appetite have fall'n at length into an absolute aversion from all food and endur'd long abstinence without either miracle or imposture and yet notwithstanding have not been emaciated in proportion to the time of their fasting Whence 't is probable that in our bodies there is not so rapid and profuse an expense or exhaustion of the substance of the solid parts as heretofore many learn'd Physicians
the threads in the same manner as this mucilaginous pulp fills up the interstices betwixt the fibres and so makes the membranes impervious Necessary it is to the augmentation and extenuation of the fibres themselves For the fibres of the Stomach although seldom or never liable to fatness are yet easily capable of plumpness and leanness In men sick of a Consumtion they are alwayes extenuated in fat men alwayes plump and thick But these mutations could not so easily happen if the fibres were not stuff'd with some pulp for all Parenchymata are easily melted a way by degrees but fibres not without great difficulty nor do I know any thing more apt to colliquate their substance and destroy their tone than Brandy and other corroding Spirits how highly soever extoll'd by Chymists that distill them We may see in men languishing of Hectic fevers and ulcers of the lungs the Tendons of the muscles remaining intire when the pulp of them is in the mean time almost wholly consumed Whence 't is evident that the fibres which are more easily obnoxious to augmentation and diminution than other solid parts have much of a pulpy substance in their composition 3. This pulp if softned and diluted with water is like a mucilage or gelly otherwise tenacious tensible and strong like paste so as to be impervious to winds and liquors though apt perhaps to imbibe the thinner and spirituose part of the Chyle Different from the Parenchyma of the bowels and from that of the Muscles also as being neither bloody but white and spermatic nor congested into a mass but spread abroad like plaister so as to bear extension and contraction together with the fibres part of it being stuff'd or cramm'd into the fibres the rest dawbed upon and betwixt them so as to fill up and plane their interstices 4. Besides which two Uses it seems to serve also to three others viz. to the safe conduct of the Venae Lacteae proceeding from the Stomach which probably have their roots in the parenchyma of the inmost tunic thereof where the small Glandules observ'd by Steno and Malpighius are seated to the separation of the mucus or pituita emortua from the bloud brought by the arteries into the coats of the Ventricle of which we shall more opportunely inquire when we come to the uses of the Stomach and lastly to make way for a larger current of blood to pass through the membranes of the Stomach than otherwise they and their pure fibres could through their substance transmitt For Fibres by how much more firm and tenacious they are than the Parenchyma is by so much more they resist the transition of the blood and therefore if here were no Parenchyma certainly the Ventricle would be irrigated with more slender streams of blood and consequently colder than it ought to be Whereas now no less than five conspicuous arteries discharge themselves into its coats Certain therefore it is that a more liberal afflux of bloud is requir'd to the constitution of the stomach than seems possible to be transmitted through the naked membrane and fibres without this pulp Having now at length finish'd I wish I might say perfected my survey of all visible Elements or constituent parts of the Ventricle I should proceed to the functions actions and uses of it But remembring that an empty Stomach hath no ears and considering that it would be double wrong to you should I at once starve both your bodies and your curiosity I choose rather here to break off the thread of my discourse than to weaken that of your life by detaining you longer from necessary refection ¶ PRAELECTIO III. Of the ACTIONS and USES of the VENTRICLE AFTER dinner sit a while is an old and good precept to conserve health Let us then if ye please now observe it And that we may repose without idleness let us calmly inquire into the method causes and manner of Digestion resuming the clew of our discourse where hunger and thirst brake it off when it had brought us to that place where we might most opportunely consider the ACTIONS and USES of the Ventricle whose admirable Structure and various Parts we had so particularly contemplated in order to our more accurate investigation of them In this disquisition Nature her self hath plainly mark'd out the steps wherein we are to tread having assign'd to the Ventricle eight distinct operations or actions to be perform'd in order successively These Actions are 1. Hunger 2. Thirst 3. The Peristaltic motion 4. Reception 5. Retention 6. Concoction 7. Secretion 8. Expulsion each of which hath a peculiar Faculty respondent to it for every action in specie distinct necessarily implies a distinct power But because each distinct faculty and the action respondent to it are though in reason different yet in reality one and the same thing I shall not treat of them separately but describe them together under the more familiar name of action the rather because if we can be so lucky to find out the true reason of any one operation here specified we need search no farther to know the nature of the faculty to which it belongs all mechanical operations conducting our understanding to the knowledge of the proper powers by which they are perform'd Following then the order of Nature in examining these Actions I begin from the first viz. HUNGER Among the many differences betwixt Plants and Animals this is not the least remarkable that Plants are fixt by their roots which serve them also instead of mouth and stomach in the earth so that they remove not from their places in quest of nourishment Unde facundiss noster Entius in Antidiatribae pag. 5. Plantae inquit non sunt quidem gressiles sed humo affixae secum continuè habitant quòd pluviâ solùm ac rore tenuissimo scilicet victu pascantur Ideoque cùm ad rivulos potatum ire nequeant expansis veluti brachiis facundos imbres à Jove pluvio implorant But Animals having their Stomach within their bodies and sucking no juice immediately from the earth are therefore forced to change their stations and range from place to place to find food convenient for their sustenance And because the capacity of their Ventricles and Gutts is not so great as at once to contain a quantity of food sufficient to maintain life for many dayes together necessary it is they should often be recruited by eating fresh aliment To obtain which they must seek it and to oblige them to seek it they must be excited and urged by somthing within them to that quest and to that excitation is requir'd an internal goad as it were and that a sharp one too and irresistible the inevitable necessity of their nutrition consider'd otherwise they would neglect to supply themselves in due time with new sustenance and consequently soon pine away and perish Now the goad that compells them to feed is Hunger and Thirst the one urges them to seek meat the other drink both by
alternate Compression of them by the Diaphragme in inspiration by the Muscles of the Abdomen in exspiration Why then should not Anatomists be able by compression or any other way whatsoever to force the Chyle or other liquor injected through this Parenchyma or supposed Streiner I answer First that the Mechanic Ration of this Colatory being not yet for ought I know discover'd even by those curious Dissectors who have with the best Microscopes contemplated the texture of it I dare not pretend to understand the true reason of the difficulty objected Secondly that if I were permitted to declare my present conjecture concerning the same I should venture to say that the impediment to the manual expression of liquors out of the gutts into the Milky veins in Animals dissected alive may perhaps consist in one of these two things either that of the several causes or motions in the state of health and ease or indolency concurring to this complex and organic operation one or more is wanting and the Mechanism of the principal Organ the interior Membrane of the gutts altered and vitiated in the praeternatural and dolorose state of the Animal dissected or that by reason of the cruel torments the miserable Beast feels the Tone of the gutts becomes so strongly contracted and rigid as to be wholly impervious Which is the more probable because 't is well known that great and acute pain always irritates nervose and fibrose parts to contract themselves even to rigidity which is opposite to the gentle compliance and yieldingness requir'd to permeability Which may be one cause why Nature hath endow'd all Glandules ordain'd for Secretion with so little sense viz. lest otherwise being sensible of every light irritation they might be apt to shrink and condense themselves to the interruption and hinderance of their office And for Animals dissected after death I should guess that in them the Colatory of the Chyle is rendered impervious by Cold which by strong constriction or constipation shutts up all slender and inconspicuous passages of the body that had been kept open by the heat and motions of life But these are my private Conjectures as I have already declar'd offer'd rather to your examen than to your belief So is whatsoever I have said in this disquisition concerning the Distribution of the Chyle which I here conclude ¶ There remain yet two other Faculties of the stomach to be consider'd viz. the SECRETIVE by which it separates from the blood brought into its membranes by the Arteries a certain slimy and subacid mucus call'd pituita emortua dead Phlegm because the spirits thereof being exhausted it is of no further use to the blood and the EXCRETIVE by which it exonerates it self of that dead Phlegm of the sowre reliques of the food of its own decay'd Ferment and in fine of whatsoever else is unprofitable or offensive and that either upward by Eructation or by Vomit or downward into the intestines But because the explication of the Constitutions of the stomach upon which these Powers are chiefly founded and of the different motions and ways by which they are respectively executed is less pertinent and requisite to the short History of Nutrition at this time by me design'd than those precedent are upon which I have hitherto insisted and because the Sands in my glass are a good while since all run down therefore I find my self doubly obliged to pretermit the explanation of them lest I should at once both rove from my principal scope and further transgress the law of this Royal Colledge which hath set bounds to all Exercises of this kind when here perform'd By the later of which reasons I am hinder'd also from tracing the Chyle in the narrow obscure and anfractuose ways through which it passes before it can attain to the end of its journey and from observing particularly the Mutations it undergoes the Exaltation and Refinement it gradually acquires and the Secretion of its unassimilable parts made in Organs by Nature to that use ordain'd Let it therefore at present suffice if to gratifie the Curiosity of the Yonger Students of Anatomie I set before their eyes not an accurate Map but a rude Landskip of the Galaxy or Milky way in which the greater part of the Chyle glides along through the purple Island of the body to replenish the ocean of blood The Chyle being now as I said squeez'd out of the stomach and gutts into the slender pipes of the Venae Lacteae flows gently on in them from the Circumference toward the Centre of the Mesentery the precedent parts of it being necessarily pusht forward by the succedent ut unda undam pellit till it enter into certain Glandules there placed And this may be call'd the First stage of the Chyles progess through the Galaxy Extruded from thence partly by more Chyle crowding in partly by compression of the Glandules by the distended Midrif and contracted Muscles of the Abdomen it flows into the Common Receptacle or Cistern first discover'd by the Curiose and fortunate Monsieur Picquet and thence call'd by his name Which I accompt the Second stage or remove of the Chyle From the Common Receptacle which consisting of a membranose substance situate at the very root of the Mesentery upon the sphondyls of the Loins and filling up the space between the Muscles Psoae is incumbent upon the two long and fleshy productions of the Diaphragm the Chyle is transferr'd into the Ductus Chyliferus which running upward near the spine of the back and continued quite home to the Subclavian branches of the Vena Cava exonerate themselves into them and commix the Chyle with the blood and this also seems to be done by impulse or protrusion Because the two Productions of the Diaphragm lying immediately under the Common Receptacle cannot be distended as together with the Diaphragm they always are in every inspiration but they must force the Chyle therein contain'd to give way by ascending in the pipes that from thence tend upward after the same manner as in artificial fountains the water is mounted into pipes only by pressing the surface of that in the Cistern Perhaps the so often mention'd Compression of all parts included within the Abdomen by constriction of the Muscles thereof may not a little contribute to this Elevation of the Chyle which is the Third remove of it Next the Chyle by the said Subclavial veins brought into the Ascendent trunc of the Vena Cava is immediately imported together with the blood therein descending into the right ear and ventricle of the Heart Which by its Systole or contraction squeezes it into the Lungs where by their Reciprocations it is more perfectly mixt with the blood and whence it is devolv'd into the Left Ventricle of the Heart and finally thence squirted into the Arteries so soon as it hath receiv'd the form and name of blood Which is the Fourth and last stage of its journy at least of so much of it as is ordain'd
not conjoyned and united into one Compositum we shall have a hard task of it to find in either of them or indeed in any other material Subject whatsoever any thing to which we may reasonably attribute such a Power of perceiving and self-moving But if we consider the whole Brute as a Body animated and by Divine Art of an infinite Wisdom designed framed and qualified for certain actions Uses and ends then we may safely conclude that a Brute is by the law of the Creation or institute of Almighty God so made and comparated as that from such a Soul and Body united such a confluence of Faculties should result as are necessary and convenient to the uses and ends for which it was designed Do but convert your thoughts awhile upon Mechanic Engines and seriously contemplate the motions powers and effects of them Composed they are all indeed of gross solid and ponderose Materials and yet such is the designe contrivance and artifice of their various parts as that merely from their Figures positions and motions of them conjoyn'd into one complex Machine there do necessarily result certain and constant operations answerable to the intent and scope of the Artists and far transcending the forces of their divided ingredients Before the invention of Clocks and Watches who could expect that of Iron and Brass dul and heavy Metalls a Machine should be framed which consisting of a few Wheels indented in the circumference and a Spring commodiously disposed should in its motions rival the Celestial Orbs and without the help or direction of any external mover by repeted revolutions measure the successive spaces of Time even to Minutes and Seconds as exactly almost as the revolutions of the Terrestial Globe it self And yet now such Machines are commonly made even by some Black-Smiths and Mens admiration of their pretty artifice long since ceased If then in vulgar Mechanics the contrivance and advantagious dispositions of matter be more noble and efficacious than matter it self certainly in a living Automaton or Animal consisting of an active Soul and organic Body intimately united the Powers emergent from the force of such a Soul and from a conspiracy and cooperation of so many and so various Organs all so admirably formed ought to be esteemed incomparably more noble more Energetic If the art of Man weak and ignorant Man can give to Bodies of themselves weighty sluggish and unactive figure order connexion and motion fit to produce effects above the capacity of their single Natures What ought we to think of the Divine art of the Creator whose Power is infinite because his Wisdom is so Cùm magnes cui Thales propterea animam attribuit ferrum ad se attrahit domitrixque illa rerum omnium materia ut ait Plinius l. 36. c. 16. ad inane nescio quid currit acus ferrea eidem affricta mundi cardines perpetuò respicit cùm horologia nostra singulos diei noctisque hor as constanter indicant an non corpus aliud praeter elementa idque divinius participare videntur Quòd si ex artis ' dominio gubernatione tam praeclara quotidie supra rerum ipsarum vires efficiantur quid ex Naturae praecepto ac regimine fieri putabimus cujus ars solùm imitatrix est Et si hominibus serviendo tam admiranda perficiant quid quaeso ab iis expectabimus ubi instrumenta fuerint in manu Dei Harv in lib. de generat Animal exercit 70. Could not He think ye who by the voice of his Will call'd the World out of Chaos and made so many myriads of distinct beings out of one and the same universal Matter could not He I say when he created Brutes so fashion and organize the various Parts and Members of their Bodies thereto adjust the finer and more active contexture of their Souls and impress such motions upon them as that from the union and cooperation of both a syndrome or confederacy of Faculties should arise by which they might be qualified and inabled to live to perceive to know their perceptions to move and act respectively to the proper ends and uses of their Creation Undoubtedly He could and 't is an Article of my belief that He did When ye hear a Church Organ is it not as delightful to your Mind as the Musick is to your Ear to consider how so many grateful Notes and Consonances that compose the charming Harmony do all arise only from Wind blown into a set of Pipes gradually different in length and bore and successively let into them by the apertures of their Valves and do ye not then observe the effect of this artificial instrument highly to excell both the Materials of it and the Hand of the Organist that play 's upon it The like Harmony perhaps ye have sometimes heard from a musical Water-Work that plaid of its self without the Fingers of a Musician to press down the Jacks merely by the force of a Stream of Water opening and shutting the Valves by turns and in an order predesign'd to produce the harmonical Sounds Consonances and Modes requisite to the composition to which it had been set Now to this Hydraulic Organ ye may compare a Beast whose Soul being indeed by reason of a certain modification of her matter qualified to perceive the various impressions made by objects upon the Nerves of the instruments of the Senses and to perform many trains of Actions thereupon is yet so limited in her Energy that she can perform no other actions but such as are like the various parts of an harmonical Composition regularly prescribed as the Notes of a Tune are prict down on the tumbrell of our Instrument by the Law of her Nature and determined for the most part to the same scope the Conservation of herself and the Body she animates So that she seems qualified only to produce a Harmony of Life Sense and Motion and this only from a certain contexture of the spirituose Particles of the matter of which she is made and from the respective Organization of the Body in which she acts But from what kind of texture or modification of the supposed Particles doth the faculty of Perceiving or discerning Objects arise For what I have hitherto said is too general to explain the particular reason of the thing here inquired viz. qua ratione fiat ut res sentiens creetur ex rebus insensilibus whence it is that a corporeal Soul composed of matter in it self wholly void of Sense acquires the power of Sensation I say therefore that this is indeed the difficulty that remain's here to be solved but such a difficulty that I dare not attempt to solve having much more reason to believe that it will to the end of the World remain indissoluble For to comprehend what particular Mode of composition or contexture of insensil Matter that is that gives to it the nature of essence and faculties of a sensitive Soul seems to me far to transcend the capacity of
human understanding and whosoever shall with attention and Judgment read what that most acute and no less profound Philosopher Gassendus hath written on this Aenigmatic Question Quî sensile gigni ex insensilibus possit in lib. 10. Diogen Laertii will I presume with him conclude Hanc rem videri omni humanâ perspicaciâ sagacitate superiorem Leaving then this Problem as I found it desperate and ending the halt I with your permission made to consider the nature Life and Principal Faculties of a sensitive Soul I proceed to the THIRD capital Enquiry designed in this discourse ¶ WHAT Opinions I at present hold to be most probable as well concerning the nature of Life in general as touching the different origines of Human and Brutal Life in particular ye have with obliging patience heard Be pleased with like patience to hear also what I have to say concerning the SUBIECT wherein the Life both of Man and Brutes seems primarily to Subsist That the Life of all Animals is originally as it were kindled in their Blood we may learn from the wisest of Men and Kings Salomon himself Who in his Book of Wisdom Cap. 2. v. 2. according to the Graec version of the LXX Interpreters introduceth impious Men discoursing among themselves of the short incertain and easily extinguishable Life of Man in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quoniam fumus est afflatus in naribus nostris serino scintilla in motu cordis nostri which our last Translators have thus englished for the Breath in our Nostrils is as Smoke and a little Spark in the moving of our Heart For if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Life be understood we may from this remarkable text safely infer that Salomon was not far from holding the same Opinion concerning the Fountain or Origine of Life that is asserted by all our modern Anatomists viz. that Life first ariseth from and is perpetually as it were kindled a new by the motion of the Blood though it be scarce probable he had any the least knowledg of the perpetual Circuition or Circulation of the Blood first discovered to the World by our thence immortal Dr. Harvey And by one infinitely greater than Salomon even by the Author of Truth and giver of Life God himself we are certainly taught that the Life of all Animals of what kind soever is seated primarily and doth continually subsist in the Blood tanquam in subjecto suo primordiali or at least in some certain humor analogous to Blood and therefore not unworthy to be call'd a vital Humor For in Levit. cap. 17. v. 14. He saith expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye shall eat the Blood of no manner of Flesh for the Life of all Flesh is the Blood thereof Being then by Divine Authority assured that Life is the Of-spring of the Blood and perpetually resident therein we may with good reason distinguish Life into Original and Influent The Former is that which is perpetually as it were kindled in the Blood passing through the Ventricles of the Heart not from the influx of any adventitious Principle but by the Sole power and energy of the vital Spirit itself contained in and ruling the Bloud For the vital Motion itself comes immediately from no other Principle but that ruling Spirit and therefore the Act of the same Spirit is by consequence Vital And forasmuch as the reason of the actual Heat of the Blood consisteth only and wholly in that vital Motion that Heat also must be Vital and the regent Spirit that suscitates that motion first in it self and then in the Blood must be the true Fountain and Origin of the vital Heat This great truth certainly was not unknown to the Antients For Virgil seems to more than hint it in that Verse of his Aeneid lib. 10. Una eademque via sanguis animusque sequantur And Suidas where he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also as Aristotle relates Critias who held Sentire maximè proprium esse animae atque hoc inesse propter sanguinis naturam To these may be subjoyned Thales Milesius Diogenes Heraclitus Alcmaeon c. who all consented in this position id animam esse quod sua natura vim movendi obtineret Evident it is then that this Doctrine that the vital Spirit is the principle of motion or heat and consequently of Original Life in the Blood was taught by some of the antient Philosophers though probably not so clearly and fully as by the Anatomists of our Age who have had the advantage to know the whole mystery of the Circuition of the Blood whereof the former seem to have been ignorant Hence it appears how far those of our late Writers have erred from the Truth who permitting their Phantacy to overrule their Judgment and indulging I know not what Chymical shall I say or Chimerical Hypotheses drawn from the contrariety between Alchali's and Acids have confidently taught that Life ariseth from a conflict or Fight of two Antagonists whether of an Acid or Saline and a Lixiviose or of a Saline and Sulphureose or of the Bile Chyle or nitroaereal Spirit and the Blood For the vital Motion really proceeds as I said from the very nature of the thing which causeth it that is in the Blood from the vital Spirit regent of the Blood which being naturally agil active and votatil and alwaies endevoring to extricate itself necessarily contends with the grosser parts that clogg and restrain it and by that contention excites motion in the Blood and such a motion upon which the vitality of the Blood depends Impossible therefore it is that Life should come to the Blood from a mutual conflict of extraneous or forein Principles whatsoever they are supposed to be The Later or Influent Life is communicated from the Blood now impregnated with vital Spirits to all parts of the Body Of which much remains to be spoke in its proper place Meanwhile that we may know what is to be understood per curriculum vitae the race or cours of Life 't is necessary for us to run through all the Uses and Acts of the Blood while it flows in a Circle to and through all parts of the Body For these being attentively survey'd will at last reward our diligence with Light enough to direct us to judge more clearly of the Power and Energy of as well Original as Influent Life But first for perspicuites sake we must advert that Arteriose Blood seems to differ from Venose chiefly in this that in Arteriose Blood the Heat or Motion Vital for both are one thing and so we shall by and by find them to be is actual in venose only in the way or disposition to become actual as will appear from our following discourse concerning the Acts of the Blood in the race of Life Which are accompted in number five viz. 1 Actual Generation of Original Life or of vital motion or heat in the Blood itself 2 Excitation of
the Pulse of the Heart and Arteries 3 Distribution of the Blood by virtue of that pulsation 4 Communication of Life to all parts of the Body by means of that distribution and 5 Reduction of arteriose Blood to the state of Venose the exhalations of it being first partly consumed partly condensed and absorp't into the Lympheducts Of each of the Acts we must particu-larly enquire The FIRST Act viz. the Generation of Original Life in the Blood it self seems to be perform'd in this manner The vital Spirit rector of the Blood by its own natural force and expansive energy endevors to exagitate and expand the Blood now again brought into the Ventricles of the Heart while the grosser parts of the Blood by their nature more sluggish and unactive resist and hinder that endevor to expansion From this resistence or checking instantly arises a certain Colluctation or mutual striving between the expansive motion or endevor of the vital Spirits on one part and the renitency of the grosser parts of the Blood on the other And from this Colluctation an actual Heat is quickly excited or kindled in the Blood actual Heat being nothing else but an expansive Luctation of the Particles of the Body or Subject in which it is as the illustrious Lord Chancellor Bacon hath with admirable sagacity from many instances collected in historia calidi in novi Organi Pag. 218. Seeing therefore that this motion of the Blood consisteth in the expansive endevor of the Spirits and the reluctation of the other parts of it this Motion consequently is actual Heat But because this expansive Luctation is not hostil or noxious but Amicable Benign and tending not only to the conservation of the Blood but also to the exaltation of all its Faculties and Operations and because it comes as I said a little before from within from the Spirit conteined in and ruling the Blood therefore the Motion or Heat thence resulting is also Vital For in that very expansive motion of the Blood doth the formal reason of Life originally consist This being a Theorem not a little abstruse and of very great Moment chiefly to Physicians 't is requisite I should endevor both to clear and establish it That I may do so I begg leave to set before you a short Series or Train of certain Propositions of which the subsequent depending like the Links of a Chain upon the antecedent they may at length convince you of the Truth from thence to be concluded PROPOS I. The Heat is only Motion THe verity of this is apparent 1 From Flame which is perpetually and violently Moved 2 From the like agitation of all parts of servent or boyling Liquors 3 From the incitation and increment of Heat caused by Motion as in blowing up Fire by Bellows or Winds 4 From the very extinction of Fire and Heat by all strong compression which arresteth the Motion thereof and instantly causeth it to cease 5 From hence that most Bodies are destroyed at least sensibly altered by all Fire and by strong and vehement Heat which introducing a Tumult Perturbation and rapid Motion upon their parts by degrees totally dissolves the cohesion or continuity of them Nevertheless this Proposition is to be understood with due limitation or as it stands for the Genus of Heat not that Heat generates Motion or that Motion generates Heat always tho both these be in some things true but that Heat it self or the very essence of Heat is Motion and nothing else yet a certain peculiar sort of Motion or limited by the differences to be subjoyned PROPOS II. That Heat is an Expansive motion by which a Body strives to dilate it self and recede into a larger space than what it before possessed THis also is evident 1 In Flame where the Fume or Fat Exhalation manifestly widens itself and spreads into Flame 2 In all boyling Liquors which sensibly swell rise up and emit Bubbles still urging the process of self-dilation untill they become more extense and are turned into Vapor or Smoke or Aire 3 In Wood and all other combustible matter set on Fire where is sometimes an exudation of moysture alwaies an evaporation 4 in the melting of Metals which being most compact Bodies do not easily swell and dilate themselves and yet the Spirit of them being once excited by Fire begins instantly to dilate itself and continues to push away and drive off the grosser parts till their coherence being interrupted they become liquid and if the Heat be more and more intended it dissolves and converts much of the fixed Metal into a volatil Substance Gold only excepted 5 in a Staff of Wood or Cane which being heat in hot Embers becomes easily flexible a sign of internal dilatation 6 In Aire above all things which instantly and manifestly expands itself by a little Heat 7 In the contrary nature of Cold which contracts most Bodies forcing them into narrower spaces and shrinking their dimensions so that in extreme Frosts Nayls have been observed to fall out of Doors and Vessels of Brass to crack with many other admirable effects of great Cold noted by the Honourable Mr. Boyl in his most accurate History of Cold. So that Heat and Cold though they do many actions common to both are yet è diametro contraries in this that Heat gives a Motion expansive and dilating but Cold gives a Motion contractive and condensing PROPOS III. That Heat is a Motion expansive not uniformly through the whole Subject but through the lesser Particles thereof not free but checkt hinder'd and repulsed or reverberate So that the Motion becomes interrupt alternative perpetually trembling and striving and incited by that resistence and repuls Whence comes the Fury of Fire and Heat pent in and opposed in their Expansion OF this we have instances 1 In Flame boyling Liquors melted Metals glass Furnaces c. all which perpetually tremble swell up and again subside alternately 2 In Fire which burns more fiercely and scorches more ardently in frosty Weather 3 in common Weather-glasses in which when the Aire is expanded uniformly and equally without impediment or repuls no Heat is perceived but if you hold a Pan of burning Coals near the bottom and at the same time put a Cloth dipped in cold Water upon the top the check and repuls thereby given to the expansion of the Aire will cause a manifest trepidation in the Water and intend the borrowed Heat of it 4 In Winds pent in which though they break forth with very great violence so that their motion must needs be extremely rapid and dilating do not yet from thence conceive any sensible Heat because the motion is in all the particles of them equally and proceeds uniformly without check or interruption whereas in the burning Wind from thence called by Aristotle in Meteor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great heat seems to be generated from the frequent repulses and repercussions of its rapid Motion insomuch that it scorches where it blows chiefly in narrow
the same time the rest of the Blood in the Arteries remits its expansive Motion which was the other cause that hinder'd the Arteries from contracting themselves and those two impediments removed for that time the Fibres of the Arteries now prevail and by contracting themselves return to their middle posture of quiet by that contraction pressing the Blood forward on its Journey till it be impell'd into the substance of the Parts From whence after it hath done its Office it is soon forced to return toward the Heart through the Veins partly by more Blood flowing after and pressing it behind partly by the renitency and tonic Motion of the parts partly by the tension of the Muscles in the habit of the Body and in fine by the Pulsation of the Vena Cava which though but light is yet perceptible at its approach to the Heart where to that end it is furnisht with fleshy Fibres so that from thence Walaeus in Epist. de motu Sanguinis concluded that the circular Motion of the Blood beginn's from that part of the Vena Cava If I do not here particularly explain the reason and manner how each of these various Causes conduceth to the effect ascribed to their Syndrome or concurse it is because I presume that the whole History of the Circuition of the Blood with all its helps and circumstances is well known to the greatest part of my Auditors and because I hast to the FOURTH Act in the race of Life which beginns where the distribution of the Blood through the Arteries end 's and is the Communication of Life from the Blood distributed to all parts of the Body For these receiving the Blood impregnate with Original Life are thereby in a moment heated anew invigorated incited to expand themselves and made participant of Life Influent i. e. they are stirred up to the actual exercise of Augmentation or nutrition and of all other their Faculties And this Participation of Life is that vital Influx with so great Encomiums celebrated by Anatomists and the Heat of the Body both actual and vital and the general cause at least Sine qua non of all the noble Actions of the whole Body I say the General Cause because it is this influent Vital Heat that revives and stirrs them up to activity when without it all parts would be dull flaggy and torpid and yet notwithstanding it is not sufficiently able of itself to produce those Effects unless so farr forth as it is at the same time contemperated and determinated to this or that particular effect by that which some call the peculiar temperament and others the Spiritus insitus of that Member or Part whose proper Office it is to cause that effect For this vital Heat or general enlivening and invigorating influence operates one thing in the Liver another in the Spleen another in the Stomach and Gutts another in the Kidneys Sic de caeteris assisting and promoting the faculties of all parts so that no one can execute its proper function without it as the irradiation of the Sun is requisite to make the Ground fruitful and to excite the Seeds of all Vegetables lying in it and indeed this vital Heat is to Animals the Sun within them their Vesta perpetual Fire familiar Lar Calidum innatum Platonic Spark pepetually glowing not that like our common Fire it shines burns and destroys but that by a circular and incessant Motion from an internal Principle it conserves nourishes and augments first itself and then the whole Body Undè Entius noster in Antidiatribae pag. 6. in hunc finem extructum est cor quod calentis sanguinis rivulis totum corpus perpetim circumluit Cumque Plantae omnes à Solis benigna irradiatione vigorem vitamque adeo suam praecipùe mutuentur animalibus caeteris cordis calor innascitur unde tanquam à Microcosmi sole partes omnes jugiter refocillantur Ac propterea minùs placet quòd plantarum germen Corculi nomine indigitaveris Good reason then had our most Sagacious Harvey to sing so many Hymns as it were to this Sol Microcosmi that continually warms comforts and revives us Discoursing of the Primogeniture of the Blood in an Embryon Lib. de Generat Animal exercit 50. he falls into this elegant encomium of it Ex observatis constat Sanguinem esse partem genitalem fontem vita primùm vivens ultimò moriens sedemque animae primariam in quo tanquam in fonte calor primò praecipùe abundaet vigetque à quo reliquâ—â— omnes totius corporis partes calore influente foventur vitam obtinent Quippe calor Sanguinem comitatus totum corpus irrigat fovet conservat Ideoque concentrato fixoque leviter sanguine Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nominavit veluti in lipothymia timore frigore externo febrium insultu contingit videas illicò totum corpus frigescere torpere pallore livoreque perfusum languescere evocato autem rursum sanguine hui quam subitò omnia calent denùo florent vigent splendentque Nec jecur munus suum publicum exsequitur sine influentia sanguinis caloris per arteriam Caeliacam Imò vero Cor ipsum per Arterias Coronarias influentem unà cum sanguine caliditatem vitamque accipit Quippe nullibi est caloris affluentia citra sanguinis influxum per arterias Sanguis denique totum corpus adeo circumflùit penetrat omnibusque ejus partibus calorem vitam jugiter impertit ut Anima primò principaliter in ipso residens illiûs gratiâ tota in toto tota in qualibet parte ut vulgò dicitur inesse meritò censeatur In another place Exercit. 51. vindicating the Supremacy of it over all parts of the Body he breaks forth into this memorable expostulation Si Neoterici quidam verè dicant animalium semen coitu emissum esse animatum quidni pari ratione affirmemus animam esse in sanguine cùmque hic primò generetur nutriatur moveatur ex eodem quoque animam primùm excitari ignescere Certè sanguis est in quo vegetativae sensitivae operationes primò elucent cui calor primarium immediatum animae instrumentum innascitur qui corporis animaeque commune vinculum est quo vehiculo animae omnibus totius corporis partibus influit In a third place Exercit. 70. where he with cogent reasons refutes the vulgar error de calido innato he puts an end to all false notions and all disputes concerning that Subject and then concludes in these words Solus sanguis est calidum innatum seu primò natus calor animalis Habet profectò in se animam primò ac principaliter non vegetativam modò sed sensitivam etiam motivam permeat quoquoversum ubique praesens est eodemque ablato anima quoque ipsa statim tollitur adeo ut sanguis ab anima nihil discrepare videatur vel saltem substantiae cujus actus sit anima
Hysteric and contractions of the Nerves descending ad uterum 3. That the custom of sprinkling cold Water upon the Face of Women in Swouns is more antient than Philostratus Otherwise he could not have been so easily inclined to believe that a few drops of Rain that fell upon the Maids Face might conduce to her restoration especially when the reason he brings why an effect so considerable should proceed from so mean a cause is weak and trivial and when a sprinkling with hot Water might have been more efficacious 4. And lastly That Philostratus nevertheless shews himself no small Natural Philosopher in this very Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an scintillam animae in ipsa invenerit than which none could have been more proper more significant more emphatic at least if the notion of Original Life inkindled and perpetually glowing in the Blood which I have laboured here to explain be consentaneous to Truth And ye may remember that Salomon uses the very same Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his description of Life in the forecited place of Ecclesiastes Which is alone sufficient as to give credit to the Expression itself so also to excuse my induction of this Story into the place of an Epilogue Now this Animae Scintilla is liable to Languors and Eclipses chiefly in Women of more frigid and delicate Constitutions i. e. of little Heat and certainly in every Syncope there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Plato calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 animula infirma the vestal Fire in the Heart dwindling into a Spark Whence it is that at such times all parts of the Body wanting a due influx of warm Blood during the cessation of the Heart become pale wan liveless and torpid imitating the Cold of Death But when the same Vital Spark begins to glow again and renew the Mication of the Blood it soon restores to the whole Body that vividam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or brisk Effulgency whereof it was deprived during the Eclipse And this probably was the case of our Virgin No wonder then if Apollonius either perceiving by her feeble Pulses the Mication of her Blood not utterly extinguished or coming luckily in the very Article of Time when the same began to be more discernible to the touch than it had been awhile before to the Physicians that were retired made his advantage thereof pretending to restore her to life by Miracle He being an Impostor of singular cunning and watching all occasions to raise his reputation among the credulous Vulgar by appropriating to himself the causing of Events which in truth though perhaps rarely contingent were yet nevertheless merely Natural For who can believe that this Spark of Life when once utterly extinct can ever be rekindled in whatsoever Animal unless by a Power that can reverse change and surmount the fundamental Laws and Constitutions of Nature and that any such supernatural Power was at any time given to Apollonius Philostratus himself was not able to prove Safely then may we conclude that this Bride was not really but seemingly Dead when Apollonius came to her The same I dare say also of those Animals which Malpighi and some of our English Virtuosi have imagined and written they had restored to Life after Strangulation only by blowing Air sometimes into their Lungs sometimes into the Ductus Pecquetianus For that those Animals had been propemodum suffocata or brought by the Experimentors and confinium usque mortis is easy to believe but that they were quite dead and then revived extremely difficult to a Philosopher who knows that the Laws of Nature permit no regress to habit from total privation I conclude therefore with Sr. G. Ent's most judicious reflection upon this so magnified Experiment Antidiatribae pag. 143. Mirandum sane magis illis Authoribus cum Atropo fatalia abscindente stamina eam intercessisse necessitudinem ut ipsum mortis articulum tam accuratè persentiscerent c. For in Patients oppressed by the Apoplexy Epilepsy Lethargy Syncope or Hysteric Passion chiefly where no Pulse is perceptible and the outward parts of the Body are grown cold and stiff t is extremely difficult to distinguish utrum scintillula illa vitalis tantum delitescat an sit in corde penitus extincta So that even Physicians themselves and those too of the highest classis for learning Experience and Iudgment have sometimes mistaken the Living for the Dead Of which we have an eminent example in that Prince of Anatomists but most unfortunate Man Andreas Vesalius who as Hubertus Languettus hath left upon record in an Epistle to Casper Pucerus and Melchior Adamus in vita Vesalii dissecting the Breast of a certain Grandee of Spain whom he thought to be dead the Day before found his Heart yet panting to his own and the spectators astonishment to his eternal disgrace the danger of his Life and exile in which he miserably perisht upon the Shore of the Island Zant in his return from Palestine Doth any Man here expect from me other Examples of the like Mistakes Let him seek them in Pliny Nat hist. l. 7. C. 52. Georgius Pictorinus Sermon Convival l. 1. Alexander Benedictus Practic l. 10. c. 10. Paraeus Forestus Albertus Bottonus Schenckius Levinus Lemnius Fabricius Hildanus c. for now I have not time to recount them Prudenter itaque faciunt Magistratus saith Hildanus Observat. Chirurgic centur 2. observ 95. uti ego Genevae in quibusdam aliis locis observavi qui neminem sepeliri permittunt nisi priùs à quodam viro artis Medicae perito ad hoc negotium destinato inspecto atque explorato Cadavere For the same reason I approve not the vulgar Custome of setting great Pewter Dishes Turfs of Earth or other the like cold and ponderose things upon the Breast and Belly of Men newly defunct For by that means though the putrefaction and consequent fermentations of Humors congested within those Cavities may perhaps be somewhat checkt and retarded chiefly in Dropsies and great Apostems yet in other cases and where the person is not really but only in appearance Dead the spark of Life which is only eclipsed and otherwise may shine forth again is liable to be totally extinguished Nor am I singular in this opinion For I could at this very instant of time convert my eye upon one of the most Eminent Physicians not only of this Royal Colledge but of the whole World who languishing of a grievous and long Sickness and well prepared for a decent Exitus did nevertheless in my hearing for I had the honour of watching with him that night give order to his Attendants to omit that kind of treatment of his Body after all signs of Life should cease in him adding the very same Reason I have here given And this I have good reason to believe he did not from fear of Death but only from his deep insight into the Nature of Life of which he ceased not to Philosophize even when he expected
to arrive at the Period of his own within few Hours after ¶ PRAELECTIO V. Of Fevers IT is the custom of Mathematicians as ye most Candid Auditors well know when from a Series of Propositions premised and verified they have inferred the conclusion they sought to add as overplus certain useful Theorems or consectaneous Speculations by the Graecs called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Consectaria sive Coroltaria by the Latins the knowledg of which is many times of equal moment with that of the Verity on which they depend Give me leave then I beseech you so far to imitate this Method of those great Masters in the art of Reasoning rightly as from my discourse on Saturday last in the morning concerning the Primordia perpetual Source and circular race of Life to deduce a few Pathological Consectaries such as may perhaps afford some glimses of Light toward the discovery and nature and causes of a certain Malady which is of all others incident to Mans frail Body the most common most grievous and most dangerous And this Leave I with the greater confidence ask because I intend not to abuse it by digressing impertinently from either my present Subject or my Duty For the Subject of my Speculation designed is the same with that of my antecedent disquisition viz. the Blood and to find out the most probable Causes and reason of curing great Diseases is the principal scope and end of all our Enquiries as well Physiological as Anatomical Of which none can be ignorant who hath perused that little but oraculous Book of Hippocrates de Prisca Medicina where he teacheth that it is the great Duty of all Physicians who desire to render themselves worthy of that honourable appellation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by discours alone but also by their Works and real succoring of the Sick to be solicitous about investigating the true Nature Causes and Remedies of Maladies above all things Nor is it new to find in the Writings of Anatomists Pathological reflexions subjoyned to the description of the part which is known to be the primary Seat of the preternatural Assections incident thereunto Secure then that what I have resolved with my self at this time to speak cannot in the end be justly esteemed a Parergon or beside the principal purpose I have taken in hand and conceiving great Hope both from the frequency and from the benign Aspect of this learned Assembly that hitherto my dulness hath not been able wholly to overcome your Patience I will presume ye are not unwilling to grant my so equitable Petition In my last Exercitation I endevored to evince as ye may be pleased to remember that the Vital Heat or Motion of the Blood doth formally consist in a certain expansive luctation of the spirituose Particles thereof with the less moveable or unactive repulsed and prevailing alternately but mild amicable benign and conducing to the exaltation of all the faculties and Uses of the Blood Now I come to add that it is not only possible but that it often happens that this Vital Motion although proceeding only from the Spirits that conserve and rule the Blood is by causes beside the institute of Nature invading it perturbed interrupted perverted and sometimes also wholly extinguished the vital Oeconomy being thereby sooner or later utterly subverted Of this we have instances almost innumerable Nor is there any one kind of preternatural Causes assignable by which Nature may not be impeded in her production of this Vital Motion and more or less perturbed as we cannot but observe it within our selves to come to pass sometimes from the immoderate Heat of the Aire surrounding us as in Ephemera sometimes from Meats and Drinks potentially too Hot as in Surfets and drunkenness sometimes from vehement Passions of the Mind as in anger Fear Grief c. Sometimes from a fermentation of the Blood as in putrid Fevers sometimes from venenate effluvia of Bodies as in pestilential and contagious Fevers sometimes from a simple solution of continuity of the Parts as in Wounds so that in fine to enumerate all the various causes by the hostility of which this Life conserving work of the vital Spirits may be hindred and perverted is a thing extremely difficult if not plainly impossible But in all these so various cases this is worthy to be noted as a general verity that the vital Spirits of the Blood are always preternaturally affected and that the disorder from thence emergent ought to be imputed to a p. n. Cause Every thing then that pollutes the Blood and that putts Nature to an effort or essay to separate and eject it from thence as alien and hostile is wont more or less according to the diversity of its Nature and Malice to impugn and repress the vital Motion of the Blood But nothing hath been observed to do it either more frequently or more contumaciously than impurities arising from Crude Humours congested in the Mass of Blood which cannot be separated and extirpated without previous Concoction or Digestion For these constituting a certain peculiar Inquinament or Pollution of the Blood put on the nature and acquire to themselves the efficacy of a Ferment not indeed such as the Leven of Bread or as the Yest of Ale and Beer but such that being in our Bodies mixt with the Blood which perpetually conceives new vital Heat in itself produceth the like commotions therein that those domestic Ferments do in their respective Subjects and may therefore be not unfitly called a Ferment according to the Name given to it by all Modern Physicians For it causeth a manifest Tumult or intestine War in the Blood after this manner The inquinament of the Blood by reason of the crudity and viscidity of its parts impugnes and hinders the benign expansive Motion of the Spirits in which I have declared the Generation of the vital Heat of it to consist and the Spirits on the contrary by their natural tendency to expand themselves oppose that repressive Force and strive to defend themselves from oppression producing by their energy a continuation of the Mication of the Blood imperfect indeed and mixt with Fermentation but the best they are able till they have gained the Victory to produce So that the Fermentation of the Blood in Fevers seems to proceed not from the impurities mixt with the Blood alone but partly from them and partly from Nature i. e. from the vital Spirits conserving the vitality of the Blood For while these are impugned checkt and hindred by those the Motion resulting from that conflict is indeed a certain Mication of the Blood but tumultuous violent unequal and interrupted with little Bubles and Froth I say therefore that this civil War in the Blood as it includes a certain Vital though imperfect and irregular Mication of the Blood cannot be denied so far forth to be the work of Nature but as that Mication is supposed to be tumultuose seditiose hostil and unequal it must be in that respect
rage or fury Which for the most part happens in the beginning of the Fever and then arise various Symptoms and dangerous according to the various Temperament Irritability Action Use and Situation of the part upon which the turgent matter rusheth As for instance in Phrenetic Patients we observe an admirable change of Symptoms sometimes their Sight sometimes their Hearing sometimes their Tongue being invaded and disordered by the wandering humor that causes their Delirium and often shifts the scene of its tragical fury And the Reason seems to be this that the inraged matter of the Disease is so highly offensive to Humane Nature that no part of the whole Body can suffer it so much as one moment of time without uniting the Forces of all its irritated Fibres to squeeze it out so that it is transmitted from some parts to others in a trice If it happen therefore that any crude humor be in this impetuose manner transmitted to any Secretory Organ even though it be not redundant in the whole Body a considerable part of it may be by help of purging Medicaments respective to that Organ speedily carried off to the preservation of the Patients life For the humor so turgent and rushing into the Organ doth by its very motion irritate the Fibres of it to contract themselves vigorously to expel it no less than if it were redundant in the whole Body If the storm then fall upon the Stomach the danger thence impendent may be easily prevented by a moderate Vomit given before the humor be removed to some other part if upon the Guts a convenient Purge may serve to turn it downward And yet I must confess that such early Evacuations are commonly tumultuous and painful as promiscuously educing all humors they meet with and therefore never to be instituted but where the matter of the Disease is turgent The THIRD Case is when some little portions of any one or more of the Analogous Humors formerly described chance to be carried together with the stale and dead recrements of the Blood to the Secretory Organs In particular when some of the acrimonious and corroding Serum of the Blood is by nature therewith offended transmitted together with the Biliose Excrement of it to the Liver or some of the whitish and viscid Grumus of the Blood together with the Pituita emortua to the Stomach or finally some of the aqueous or potulent matter with that of the Urine to the Kidneys Because Nature tends that way and being assisted by a convenient Parge in the first Case in the second by a gentle Vomit and by temperate Diuretics in the third may continue the same course until she has brought the remainder of the peccant matter to a perfect Crisis The FOURTH is when any vitiose matter yet crude is so redundant in the Blood that nature reduced to her last shift is compelled to exclude it by parcels by any Secretory Organ not by that which is most proper and congruous to the nature of the humor As it happens in the Yellow Iaundise when part of the corrupt Choler is separated from the Blood in the Kidneys and makes the Urine thick turbid and yellow and in that dreadful Disease call'd Cholera all the Bilis ejected upward and downward is not concocted and truly felleous but for the greater part crude and only analogous to that which is separated from the Blood in the Liver and thence brought into the Bladder of Gall and seems to be generated by a certain malign or venenose corruption of the Blood For improbable it is that so prodigious a quantity of biliose matter hath been separated in so little time by the Liver or excreted by the Porus Bilarius but most probable that the same is separated from the whole Mass of Blood in the inmost Coat of the Stomach and Guts In like manner they who drink Mineral Waters or Wine profusely make Urine indeed in abundance but thin and crude The FIFTH and last Case is when the Febrile Fermentation appears to be slow and lingring For here 't is lawful by just intervals to ordain Evacuations by milder Cathartics not only in respect of the Focus which in such Cases is wont to be recruited often and therefore requires to be substracted by repeted Evacuations but also that the Fermentation it self may be quickned and so nature excited to perform her work of digesting the Crudities with more vigor and expedition Besides since in lent and lingring Fevers the crude matter is not brought to the state of maturation all at once but first some part and then more and more successively 't is fit the same should be evacuated per Epicrasin or part after part accordingly and this lest that part of the matter that is first digested remain still mixed with the Blood and inquinate it or at least being separated in the inmost Coat of the Stomach and Guts pervert either the Concoction or Distribution of the Chyle and so foment the Disease And thus have ye at length succinctly set before you all the opportunities in which it is not only lawful but expedient for a Learned Physician directing his judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Master Hippocrates speaks by certain observation of Signs and Symptoms in the sick to institute convenient Evacuations at least by milder purging Medicaments even in the beginning of putrid Fevers Nor doth any thing else remain for me now to subjoyn concerning this Argument but this brief admonition that no young Practitioner be so rash as to purge where he finds not one or more of these opportunities offered to him For if he attempt crude matter by strong and fierce Catharticks 't is ten to one but he will exhaust much of the vital spirits colliquate the Blood and render the Disease mortal ¶ CONCLUSION ANAGNOSTICK 'T is the custom of Travellers ye know when they have with panting Breast and painful Steps ascended to the top of a steep Mountain to turn about and look back upon the places and ways they have with so much labor and patience passed and this not only to take breath a while but to imprint more deeply in their memory the Images of whatever things they had in transitu observ'd uncertain whether or no Fortune may ever bring them that way again Let us then most judicious and most candid Auditors who are all Travellers too in the most darksome and rocky ways of Natural Knowledge follow their Example and having now at length attain'd to the end of this Mornings Journey take a short review of the things offered to your notice as we passed along to the end ye may the more easily recall them to mind whenever ye shall be pleased to think them not altogether unworthy your Examen it being unlikely that I shall at any time hereafter have the honour to serve you in the quality not of a Guide but Torch-bearer in this place The Heads therefore of the various things proposed by me to your