Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	bread_n	eat_v	manna_n	4,436	5	12.4770	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44824	Examen de ingenios, or, The tryal of wits discovering the great difference of wits among men, and what sort of learning suits best with each genius / published originally in Spanish by Doctor Juan Huartes ; and made English from the most correct edition by Mr. Bellamy.; Examen de ingenios. English	Huarte, Juan, 1529?-1588.; Bellamy, Mr. (Edward)	1698 (1698)	Wing H3205; ESTC R5885	263,860	544

that it grew into Nature for in tract of time all the Noble Children that were Born were Born with Pointed Heads so that the Art and Diligence of the Midwives was at an end But when they left Nature at liberty without restraint any longer by Art by little and little she received the same Figure she had before The same might have befallen the Children of Israel for say that the Land of Egypt the Manna the delicate Waters and their Affliction stamped in their Seed those Dispositions of Wit yet these Reasons once ceasing and others quite contrary taking Place it is certain that the Qualities of the Manna would wear out by degrees and would acquire others very different and more conformable to the Country they inhabited to the Meats they fed on to the Waters they drank and to the Air they breathed This Doubt in Natural Philosophy holds little difficulty for there are some Accidents to be found that are introduced in a moment and afterward indure for ever in the subject without possibility of Corrupting Others there are that are as long wearing out as they take in Engendring sometimes more sometimes less in proportion to the Activity of the Agent and the Disposition of the Patient For Instance of the First you are to know that from a great Fear a certain Man was possessed with he remained so disfigured and pale that he had all the Appearances of one Dead nor was this all his Paleness did not only stick to him all his Life long but was transmitted also to the Children he had without any Means found to remove it Conformably to this it might well be that in the Four hundred and thirty Years the Israelites were in Egypt and the Fourty in the Desart and the Sixty in the Babylonish Captity there needed more than Three thousand Years for the Seed of Abraham to lose utterly the Dispositions for Wit which the Manna had imprinted since that to remove an evil Colour which a Fright raised in a moment more than a Hundred Years were requisite But to pierce to the Root of the Truth of this Doctrin I must resolve two Doubts incident to the purpose and as yet not cleared The first is Whence it comes that Meats how much the more delicate and savory they are as Hens and Partridges so much the sooner the Stomach does Nauseate and Abhor them And that on the contrary we see a Man eat Beef all the Year round without the least Distast whereas if he eat Hens three or four days together on the fifth he can hardly endure the Smell of them without his Stomach rising against them The second Doubt is Why Wheaten Bread and Mutton not being of Substance so good nor savory as Hen or Partridge yet the Stomach never loaths them though we eat them all our Life long But wanting Bread we cannot eat other Meats or if we do they lose their Relish He that Skills how to resolve these two Doubts will easily comprehend why the Descendents of the Israelites have not yet lost the Dispositions nor the Qualities introduced by the Manna into their Seed and why the Subtilty and Sharpness of Wit of which they were possessed cannot be so soon Extinguished Two very certain and true Principles there are in Natural Philosophy on which the Answer and Resolution of these Doubts depends The first is That all the governing Powers in Man are naked divested of the Conditions and Qualities that are vested in their Objects to the end they may know and judge of all their Differences The Eyes hold this Property which being to receive all Figures and Colours have need to be totally divested thereof for if they were Yellow as in such as have the Jaundice all things they see would appear to them of that Colour So the Tongue which is the Instrument of Taste ought to be void of all Savour and if the same be Sweet or Bitter we see by Experience that all we Eat or Drink has the same Taste It is the very same in Hearing Smelling and Touching The other Principle is that all Created Beings in the World are naturally Adapted to their own Preservation labouring to Endure for ever and that that Being which they have received from God and Nature may never have end though afterwards they are to possess a better Nature By this Principle all Natural Things which are provided with Knowledge and Sense abhor whatever changes and corrupts their Natural Composition The Stomach is naked and divested of the Substance and Qualities of all the Meats in the World as the Eye of Colours and Figures and when we Eat oft though the Stomach overcome it yet the Meat turns against the Stomach because the same is of a contrary Principle and alters and corrupts its Temperament and Substance for there is no Agent so powerful that suffers not in Acting Meats very delicate and savory exceedingly alter the Stomach First because it receives and dissolves them with so great Greediness and Relish Secondly as being of so subtile Parts and without Excrements they pierce into the Substance of the Stomach from which they cannot part again The Stomach feeling that this Meat alters its Nature and takes away that Correspondence it has with other Meats begins to loath it and if it be forced to feed on it several Sawses and Seasonings are prepared to Cheat it All this the Manna had from the beginning for though it was a Meat so delicate and savory in the end the Children of Israel nauseated it wherefore they said Our Soul loaths that slight Meat A Complaint unworthy a People so highly favoured by God who had provided a Remedy for this in making the Manna have those Tastes and Relishes which best agreed with them that it might go down the better Thou gavest them Bread from Heaven which had in it all sorts of Pleasantness For which cause many among them fed thereon with a good Appetite for they had Bones Nerves and Flesh so Assimilated with the Manna and its Qualities that by reason of the great Resemblance they longed for nothing else 'T is the same in Wheaten Bread and Mutton of which we ordinarily eat Gross Meats and of good Substance as Beef are full of Excrements and the Stomach receives them not with such desire as those that are delicate and savory and so they take more time to be Assimilated Hence it follows That to Corrupt the Alteration which the Manna made in a day there will be need of a whole month of contrary Meats and after this Account to extinguish the Qualities that Manna had introduced in the Seed in the space of Fourty Years there needs Four thousand Years and more But if you think not let us suppose that as God call'd out of Egypt the Twelve Tribes of Israel he had drawn Twelve Blacks and as many She-Negroes from the farthest part of Ethiopia and had brought them into Spain how many Years would it have taken to have made

State and yet tho' so Lewd and Blasphemous are nevertheless most potent in Generation and the greatest part of their Children Males and sturdy ones not effeminate Eunuchs or Hermaphrodites like yours The Reason of which is they Eat little Exercise much stroll not always on Horse-back as you do for which Reason they make their Seed hot and dry and so they get Boys and not Girls This Point of Philosophy neither Pharaoh nor his Council understood when they spoke after this Manner Come on let us deal wisely with them lest they Multiply and it come to pass that when there falleth out any War they join also unto our Enemies For the Method he took to prevent the Israelites Multiplying or at least that they should not have so many Males which was what they feared most was to oppress them with Bodily Labours and give them nothing to eat but Leaks Garlic and Onyons which had the contrary Effect for as the sacred Text declares The more they afflicted them the more they Multiplied and Grew Yet he making account that there was no better way than this to follow doubled their Tasks and their Burdens but to no more purpose than if to quench a great Fire he had cast in store of Oyl and Butter But had he or any of his Council understood Natural Philosophy they would have ordered them barley-Barly-bread Lettuce Melons Pompions and Cucumbers and permitted them to live at Ease giving them their fill of Meat and Drink without forcing them to Work For by these means they would have had moist and cold Seed whence would have proceeded more Girls than Boys and in a little time their Lives have been shortened if they had desired it Instead of which in giving them boyl'd Flesh to eat with abundance of Garlic Leeks and Onyons and obliging them to Labour hard as they did it produced hot and dry Seed by which Qualities they were more incited to Generation and got always Male Children In Confirmation of this Truth Aristotle asks in one of his Problems Whence it comes that those who Labour hard or those that are Hectic commit nocturnal Pollutions To which in earnest he knew not what to say for tho' he alledges many Reasons yet none of them reach the Mark. The right Reason is that Bodily Labour and the Hectic Fever heat and dry the Seed and these two Qualities render it sharp and pricking and because all the Natural Powers are fortified in Sleep this happens which the Problem speaks of How fruitful and pricking hot and dry Seed is Galen notes in these Words It is the most fruitful and briskly excites the Animal from the beginning even to coition it is Lascivious and prone to Lust The fourth Condition is not to engage in the Act of Generation till the Seed be setled digested and well seasoned for tho' the three preceeding Cautions be duly observed we cannot know thereby if it have acquired all the Perfection it ought to have Especially it is convenient to use this Caution for seven or eight Days before the Meats we have prescribed to give time to the Testicles to convert into their Nourishment the Seed which at that time was made from the other Aliments and that this which we are describing may Succeed The same Care is to be taken to render human Seed fruitful and prolific as Gardiners take with the Seed they would preserve they wait till they ripen cleanse and dry for if they gather them before the proper Season and point of Maturity tho' they lie in the Ground a whole Year they will not grow at all For this reason I have observed that in places where Venus is much used fewer Children are got than where there is more Continence And light Women prove rarely with Child because they stay not till their Seed be digested and ripe It is convenient then to wait some Days that the Seed may settle concoct and ripen and be duly seasoned For by this means it will duly gain Heat and Dryness and the good Substance it has lost But how shall we know the Seed to be such as it ought to be since the Matter is of so great Importance This may be easily known if there be an Interval of a few Days from the Man's denying to Company with his Wife by the continual irritation and great Desire he will have All which arises from the Seed's being fruitful and prolific The fifth Condition we have directed was that the Man should engage with his Wife six or seven Days before her Courses because a Boy has soon occasion for much Aliment to Nourish him And the Reason of it is that the Heat and Dryness of his Temperament spends and consumes not only the good Blood of his Mother but her very Excrements Wherefore Hippocrates said that the Woman that conceives a Boy is well Coloured and Fair which comes from this that the Child through his great Heat spends for his Nourishment all the Excrements that were wont to make her Thin and Wan And being so greedy it is but fit he should be supplied with Blood for his Nourishment And this Experience clearly proves for seldom is a Boy begot but towards the last Days of the Month It fares quite contrary when she conceives a Girl for through the great coldness and moisture of her Sex she Eats little and makes abundance of Excrements Accordingly a Woman with Child of a Girl looks Yellow and Green and long 's for a Thousand nasty Things and in her lying in must have longer time to cleanse than if she brought forth a Boy On which Natural Reason God grounded when he ordered Moses that the Woman that brought forth a Male being unclean seven Days should not come into the Sanctuary till after thirty three Days but if she bear a Maid-Child she should be Unclean two Weeks and should not come into the Sanctuary till she had accomplish'd threescore and six Days So that the time of her Purification was doubled for the Birth of a Female and the cause of it is that during her Nine Months stay in her Mothers Womb through the much cold and moist of her Temperament she doubled the Excrements of a Boy besides that the same were of a much worse Substance and Quality Whereupon Hippocrates observed that 't is extream Dangerous to stop the Purgation of a Woman delivered of a Girl All this is spoke to the Purpose that it is convenient to stay to the end of the Month to the end the Seed may be supplied with Nourishment sufficient If they couple immediately after the Purgation is over that Seed will not take thro' defect of Blood But I must advise Parents that if their Seed meet not together Galen said it would come to nothing tho' the Man's Seed were never so apt for Procreation The Reason of this we will give hereafter on another Subject It is alike certain that all we have offered must also be observed