it must not be denied but that the Soul is actually in the Seed tho' by reason of the Impediments its Action does not presently appear LIII But here it may be question'd Whether that Soul which forms the Birth be only in the Man's Seed or as well in the Womans I say that it is only in the Man's Seed for if part of the Soul should proceed from the Man part from the Woman then the Soul would prove a compound thing whereas it is meerly simple Or if it should be deriv'd all from the Male and all from the Woman then there would be two Principles of Formation of which one would be superfluous For there would be no necessity that the acting Principle of the Male should be joyned with the acting Principle of the Female for that the latter having an acting Principle in it self and a place convenient as the womb convenient nourishment and all other things convenient would not want any other efficient Principle of the Male but might conceive in it self and form the Birth out of its animated Seed with the Coition of the Male. And in Creatures that lay Eggs a Chicken might be hatch'd out of Wind-eggs without the Cock's treading Neither of which were ever heard of LIV. Aemilius Parisanus tho' he understood not this Mystery exactly yet seems to have observ'd something obscurely and therefore he constitutes a twofold Seed he had better have said twofold parts of the Seed one generated in the Genital Parts which he denies to be animated the other not generated in the Genital Parts but divided from the whole which he allows to be animated LV. Others who will not allow in Mankind any other Soul particularly than the Rational assert that That alone perfects the Lineaments of all the Parts out of the Seminal Matter conveniently offer'd and is the Architect of its own Habitation and stiffly uphold their Opinion with several Arguments and so tacitly endeavour to maintain that the Rational Soul is ex traduce or by Propagation no otherwise than as the Body is propagated Concerning which may be read that most acute Tractate of the Generation of Living Creatures written by Sennertus LVI But these Principles most Philosophers and all Divines oppose with great heat and affirm the Rational Soul not to be propagated but to be created and infused To whose Opinion we readily submit because the Soul is not of that nature that it can produce any thing of it self it has nothing to do in the Formation of the Body nor with any Natural Actions it is not to be divided into parts nor corruptible as the rest of the Body but immutable and separable from the Body which it inspires Besides that it is not created like the Bodies of Creatures which were commanded to be produced out of Earth and Water according to their kind wherein the Vegetative Soul of every one is included but after the whole Body of Man was form'd alive out of the Earth God is said to have breathed into him the Breath of Life and then he became a living Creature Whence it is manifestly apparent that the Rational Soul of Man inspired by God was not form'd out of Earth Water or any other corruptible Matter like his corruptible Body which was form'd out of Clay before the breathing of his Soul into him But that it proceeded incorruptible and simple from the immediate Operation of God without any parts by the separation of which it could be dissolv'd and dye as the Body for the same Reason perishes with its vegetable Soul and subsists of it self when its Temporal Habitation is fallen For which Reason Man is not only said to live Naturally like other Creatures but after the Image of God which sort of living is not ascrib'd to any other Creatures LVII But these latter tho' they seem to discourse rightly and truly of the Creation and Infusion of the Rational Soul yet if they do not likewise admit a Vegetative Soul in Man they are under a gross mistake nor do they unfold the first Efficient Principle concerning the Explanation of which the Question is here and not of the Original of the Rational Soul Against those therefore that will not admit a Vegetative Soul in Man I bring these two powerful Arguments First Seeing that the Rational Soul is not propagated by Generation but Created of necessity it must be infus'd and that either into a living or a dead Body Not into a dead Body for that Soul cannot inhabit a dead Body nor enliven it for its life is different from the life of the Body which perishes while the Soul departs out of the Body and lives to perpetuity Therefore it is infus'd into a living Body What then rais'd Life in the Body before the Infusion of the Rational Soul It will be said perhaps That at the same time that the Parts are to be delineated the Rational Soul is infus'd and that it is which introduces Life and is Life it self I answer Not when they are to be delineated but after all the Parts are compleatly delineated and form'd then the Rational Soul is infus'd according to the Testimony of the Scripture it self where it is said that God first form'd Man out of the Dust of the Earth observe the word Man therefore a living Creature or a Creature endued with a Vegetative Soul and then inspired into him the Breath of Life and he became a living Creature as much as to say that then was inspired into him his perpetual living and Immortal Soul Therefore as then so also afterwards the Rational Soul does not form and enliven the Body but is infus'd into the Body form'd and living I say living for that which forms the Body of necessity enlivens it and lives it self For such a wonderful Structure cannot be form'd by a dead thing nor by Heat alone which only serves to attenuate and melt the Substance of the Seed and rowse and set at liberty the forming Spirit lying hid and entangled within it and excite it to action not able of it self to form the Parts of the Body nor to adjust the order and shape of all its Parts And therefore it is not the Rational Soul but this same enlivening Spirit which Galen calls Nature we the Vegetative Soul rais'd out of the Seed it self wherein it is potentially is that which out of it self and the Subject wherein it abides and out of which it proceeded forms and enlivens the Body and all its agreeing Parts into which being form'd and living the Rational Soul is afterwards infus'd and united to it to determine and temper the Motions of the Corporeal Soul till the Body proving at length unfit to entertain it any longer it departs out of it not being the occasion of Death of it self but chas'd and expell'd from its Habitatation by the death of the Body So no way guilty of the death of the Body by its recess as by its access it contributed
from the Truth and by that means governs and moderates its Actions LX. For the better illustration of this Mystery there will some farther light appear in that which follows tho' indeed the whole Cloud is dissolv'd by the Soveraign Iudge which is the Holy Scripture which declares that there is a Vegetable Soul both in Men as well as in Beasts Of Brutes it is manifest in these words Let the Earth produce every living Creature according to its kind Cattel and Reptiles and every Beast of the Field according to its kind And the same is to be deduc'd from Gen. 9. v. 10 12 15 16. Levit. 24. c. 18. and Iob 12. v. 10. in all which places the Scripture speaks of a Living Soul produced out of the Earth or Corporeal Matter and joyned to the Living Body therefore corruptible and liable to perish upon the dissolution of the mix'd Body And this fort of Soul in Men the sacred Scripture not only acknowledges but distinguishes from the Immortal Rational Soul calling he one simply a Living Soul the other the Spirit given by God The first is apparent from several Texts of Scripture Gen. 2 v. 7. Exod. 21. v. 23. Levit. 24. v. 18. Deut. 19. v. 21. â—… Reg. 19. v. 4. where Elias desired the death of his Soul And in the Gospel of St. Iohn c. 10. v. 11. The good Shepherd lays down his Life for his Sheep Which certainly cannot be understood of the Immortal Rational Soul which never dyes but of that Soul which gives life as well to Brutes as Men and at the beginning form'd the Organic Body and being it self Corporeal is produced out of Corporeal Matter and perishes again together with the Body which it form'd and upon the perishing of which the Rational Soul infus'd from above immediately takes its flight as not having any habitation in the body of Man longer than Life endures This Immortal Rational Soul the holy Text to distinguish it from the Vegetative Soul which is corruptible like the Matter from whence it proceeds calls for the most part a Spirit and sometimes only the Soul Thus David Psalm 15. v. 10. Thou wilt not leave my Soul in the Grave And Psalm 30. v. 10. Into thy hands I commend my Spirit Thus Eccles. 14. v. 17. The Spirit returns to God that gave it Thus Stephen Acts 7. v. 60. Lord Iesus receive my Spirit And Matth. 27. v. 50. And when he had cried with a loud voice he yielded up the Ghost repeated by St. Iohn c. 19. v. 13. All which latter Texts cannot be understood but only of the Immortal Soul LXI But because it is apparent from what has been said That there are two Souls in Man what shall we answer to those that object and say there cannot be two Souls in Man because several Forms cannot actuate the same Matter We say that there is but one Soul that immediately actuates the same Matter and gives Form to the Species that is the Vegetative Soul but that the Rational Soul which is of a sublimer Original only dwells in the Body but never form'd it at the beginning So that there are not two but only one Form that actuates the Matter Which is manifest from hence for that when the Body form'd perishes the forming Form perishes likewise with it but the Rational Soul neither perishes nor is corrupted with it Therefore this neither is nor was the forming Form but something else infus'd into the Body already form'd and subsisting of it self which by vertue of the forming Form abides in the Body and when that fails presently forsakes the Body and subsists entirely of it self without being united to it LXII But here another Question arises Whether if a Vegetative Soul be to be allow'd which indifferently enlivens Plants and Animals there be not also a third peculiar sensitive Soul to be allow'd that feels as well in Man as in Beasts and performs Operations different from those of the Vegetative Soul To which I answer That the Vegetative Soul is the same that feels in those Creatures which have those Mediums and apt Organs necessarily requir'd for feeling as Brains Eyes Ears c. but where those Organs are wanting as in Plants they are not said to be sensible but only to live as Vegetables We must therefore yield according to Sacred Scripture and for the Reasons already alledged that there is in Man a Vital Vegetable Mortal Soul distinct from the rational immortal Soul and that that is the Soul which is the chief Actress in the Formation of the Birth the same also which many call the Architectonic Power or the Plastic Efficacy LXIII And thus I think I have sufficiently demonstrated that the Architectonic Power is the Vegetative Soul it self and that it may subsist in a living Man conveniently together with the Rational Soul And now one would think there were no more to be said as to this Particular but because we have already made an Excursion somewhat too far beyond the Limits of our Port before we return back let us spread our Sails and steer a little farther into the Ocean that we may shew a safer Course to others that sail in this Turbulent Sea and are in continual danger of Shipwrack among the Shelves and Rocks of Error and Mistake The first Doubt that occurs in the History of the Vegetative Soul is where to assign it a Seat in the Body of Man and other perfect Creatures which has occasioned great Disputes among Philosophers LXIV That it abides in all Parts of the Living Body scarce any one will deny as being apparent from its actions in all parts of the Body So that the Peripatetics asserting it to be equally diffus'd into all parts alike say that it is in All and All in every Part. That is to say that one and the same Numerical Vegetable Soul extended through the whole Body enlivens the whole But because it is divisible with the Matter wherein it abides therefore that which abides in the Parts that are torn from the whole not only constitutes a part of the Soul which enlivens the whole but constitutes the whole Soul in that part so torn off which either dyes with the part torn off for want of Nourishment as when any animal Part is cut off for then all that whole Soul which enliven'd that part fails and fades away for want of Nourishment Or else having convenient Nourishment operates in the dismembred Part and performs the Act of Enlivening Which is apparent in many Plants as for Example of a Willow Bough which being torn from the Tree and again planted in the Earth will grow as well as the Tree from which it was pull'd and therefore every bough enjoys the whole Soul as the Mother-Tree retains the whole Soul and so both the one and other grow and increase alike not by vertue of any part of the Soul but of the whole Soul as is apparent by the Action For that Vivification
recommend to the Readers what the learned Willis propounds upon this Subject in his Hist. de Anim. Brut. from Cap. 8. to Cap. 16. where he writes so elegantly and splendidly concerning the Passions that he does not only shew the sharpness of his Wit but carries away the Laurel from all others that have wrote before him LXXVIII We shall only add one Question more Seeing that the Vegetative Soul is Corporeal whether it be nourish'd by those Nourishments which are brought for the support of the Body wherein it abides It was an ancient saying of Hippocrates That the Soul always grows till death Hence some have concluded that the Soul wasts like all the other parts of the Body and is repair'd from time to time by the Nourishment together with those Parts wherein it resides But seeing the Nature of the Substance of that Soul is unknown to us and for that reason in the mean time reaches us that it abides in some Subject which is the nearest as in some subtile Spirit and by that means enlivens the Body we think that same saying of Hippocrates is rather to be understood of that same nearest subject of the Soul without which most certainly it cannot subsist than of the Soul it self concerning whose substance what and of what Nature it is and whether it want Nourishment we can determine nothing certainly When the flame of a Lamp is cherish'd and continued we do not nourish it with a flame like to it self but something that nourishes the Subject to which it adheres as Oyl with Oyl which Subject failing at length the flame fails which however is somewhat distinct from it subject for Oyl is not flame or fire neither is Fire Oyl But it is a diminutive Fire latent in the Oyl which being kindled by another flame issues forth out of it by degrees but cannot subsist without it and so there is a necessity of recruiting not the flame of the Lamp with another flame but the subject of it that is the Oyl to the end it may be continued In like manner 't is not the Soul but it s nearest Subject which is to be nourish'd and so by the nourishment of that the Soul is continu'd But that Dr. Willis believes the contrary is apparent from these words of his As the thicker Particles of the Nutritive Iuice repair the losses of the Corporeal Bulk so the more subtile Particles of it repair the waste of this same Soul And thus he believes that not only the near Subject but the Soul it self to be nourish'd which is left to every Man's liberty to think what he pleases LXXIX In the mean while there are such eager Contentions about the Original Seat Subject Essence Substance and the whole History of the Soul the most acute Philosophers could never yet find out and tell us what this same Life or Soul is concerning which so much has been discours'd and written and which is the prime Actress in the Generation of all Creatures and forms the whole that is to be form'd Here therefore it is that we are all at a loss here we find how ignorant we are here we perceive how vainly we waste our time in prying into those Mysteries which the most Sublime Creator would not have us understand Here we observe the Arrogancy of many who in the unfolding such Secrets of Nature with a haughty Ostentation endeavour to shew their Knowledge and their Learning when they utter nothing but meer empty words Certainly it behoves us in Mysteries of this Nature tacitly to acquiesce and patiently to be contented with our Ignorance and rather to admire the Power of the Almighty than to be too scrutinous into forbidden Mysteries mindful of those Verses of Lucretius Multa sacro tegit involucro Natura neque ullis Fas est scire quidem mortalibus omnia multa Admirare modò necnon venerare neque illa Inquires quae sunt arcanis proxima namque In manibus quae sunt vix nos ea scire putandum est Usque adeo procul à nobis praesentia veri The Sense of which is this Nature much under Vails seems to conceal Nor was it fit she all things should reveal It is not just proud foolish Man should know All things she does within the Orbs below Nor is it fit Man should be made so wise Lest knowing all he should her Skill despise Some of her Works as wonderful she made And some the worship of the Gods invade Things near if hid we may not search into The more remote less lawful are to know Those things with which we daily do converse Their very Names we scarcely may rehearse So far off still Truths presence seems to stand We scarce the Name much less the Thing command CHAP. XXX Containing the History of the Birth contained in the Womb. And first of the Placenta or Uterine Liver and the Cavities call'd Acetables HAving thus finish'd the History of the Seed and Conception together with that of the Formation of the Birth now let us proceed to the History of the Birth when form'd and contain'd in the Womb. I. Upon opening the Womb of a Big-bellied Woman there presently appears a fleshie Substance which Fallopius from some resemblance which it has to a Cheescake calls the Uterine Cheescake or Placenta others from its resemblance in use colour and substance call it the Uterine Liver II. This Liver is a Bowel after its own manner fleshie soft consisting of innumerable Fibres and small little Vessels and Blood between condens'd in dead People by means whereof the Birth adheres to the Womb but more especially to the bottom of it III. At first the Seed of the Man being injected into the Womb if Conception happen is every way enclos'd by the whole Circumference of the Womb and is found contiguous to it Then by the nourishing heat of the Womb it is melted and dissolv'd and so the prolific spirituous part being separated out of it it retires forthwith through the Uterine Tubes toward the Ovaries there to imprint upon the ripe Egg the Seal of Fertility This Egg in the Ovary is surrounded with two little Pellicles of which the one is thicker and stronger the other thinner and weaker as in Birds an outermost hard shell and an inner thin Membrane grows in the Egg out of the Seed of the Hen. To the outermost of these Membranes at the very first beginning certain downy Lineaments form'd out of the Female Seed are seen to adhere to which also at the very same first beginning a certain ruddy soft substance joyns it self which seems to arise from the substance it self of the womb in the same place where the Egg slips through the Tube into the Womb by means whereof it adheres by and by to the Womb and is furnish'd by the Womb with some Blood-conveighing Vessels which it imparts to the Chorion as being those Vessels which are discern'd in the Chorion before any Formation of the Birth
to the Skin of the Head that Greyness should suddenly vanish again and the Hair would resume again its pristine colour 'T is granted that if they could flow back in so great a quantity that they could with their own colour out-tincture the white colour of the Flegm But for the most part by reason of the extream scarcity of the Blood flowing in time of dismal Affright the pores of the Skin are so closed and contracted by the Flegm that the more copious quantity of Blood afterwards flowing thither or whether it be any other fuliginous blackish or choleric Hâ—…mor cannot enter to discolour the Flegmatic Humor which is the reason that grey colouâ—… cannot afterwards be altered Though if it should happen that there should be any persons in whom those forementioned Humors should get the upper hand of the Flegmatic colour which rarely falls out the Hair 't is very probable might then regain its former Tincture This I saw in the Captain before mentioned whose Hair in one Nights imprisonment from very black became as white as Snow but afterwards that Whiteness in some measure and by degrees lost its colour so that in two years time almost all his Hair was turn'd black again I say almost for that he could never recover all his former colour but that still a fourth part of his Hair continu'd still grey The same thing also happened to that person already cited of whom Marcellus Donatus reports that he was all over grey but that afterwards being overflown with Choler his Hair became of a colour between green and yellow The same Accident has been observed up and down in others in whom by reason of the redundancy of Humors that Greyness which before had whitened all their Locks was changed into another colour XXIII As to the latter Whether the Hair be to be numbred among the Parts of the Body there needs no great Dispute For in several respects they may be called Parts of the Body and sometimes not according to the various Definitions of a Part. For if we put the Definition thus A Part of the Body is any Corporeal Substance making it compleat and entire with others then Hair may be said to be a Part of the Body for that really and indeed together with other Parts compleats and perfeâ—…ts the Body of Man as Leaves make a Tree and Feathers a Bird. For as a Tree without Leaves and a Bird without Feathers can neither be said to be perfect so a man without Hair cannot be said to have all his Accomplishments though he may live without it But if we otherwise define a Part A Part is a Body cohering with the whole and conjoyned by common participation of Life appropriated and ordained to its Function and Use then Hair can hardly be said to be a Part of the Body for though they live yet they do not live the common Life of the rest of the Parts but a peculiar vegetable Life as Moss or Polipody growing upon a Tree lives a separate Life from the Tree though it receive it's nourishment from the living Tree Now the difference of its living appears from hence because that though the Tree be dead yet the Moss still lives so long as it can receive any convenient Nourishment from the Tree or elsewhere In like manner the Hair so long as it receives convenient Nourishment from the Body either alive or dead lives its own peculiar Life which Life that it is not common with the rest of the Parts is prov'd from hence for that Death is not common to the Hair with the rest of the Parts For the Soul departing all the Parts die that were enlivened with the same Soul but not the Hair as growing after the Death of Men by virtue of that peculiar Soul wherewith they are endowed Now because the Hair is nourished with the Blood in living men this does not prove that they are Parts conjoyn'd by common Life for they are not nourish'd immediately by the same Blood but by a peculiar Juice which in living Men is made out of the Blood yet may be also prepar'd out of other Humors as appears by the Woman before mention'd out of whose Ulcer filthy and stinking there grew a great quantity of Hair And as is also manifest in dead Bodies in which a long time after they have been laid in their Graves when there could be no Blood remaining the Hair has been observ'd to grow Which is a certain sign that that same Nourishing Juice was not generated out of the Blood but out of some other Humor remaining in the Body which not being overmuch in dead Bodies therefore the Hair does not grow so fast in them as in living Bodies Moreover as the Birth which is nourish'd by the Umbilical Blood through the Navel by means of the Cheese-cake adheres to the Mothers Womb is nevertheless no part of the Mother but rather a living Body by it self begot in the Mother which in the Womb enjoys the Maternal Blood as Nourishment as also the Milky Juice but afterwards being expell'd the Womb shall be no less sufficiently nourish'd and live without that Blood and Milky Juice and all this while the Mother remains entire and undeprived of any Part that contributes to her Perfection the same is to be thought of the Hair So that the Question Whether the Hair be a Part of the Body is only a Question and Controversie about the Definition of the Part. XXIV But because mention has been made concerning Hair growing in dead Bodies we shall speak something to this Particular Aristotle says that the old Hair grows in dead Bodies but that no new Hair comes again so Plotin writes that the Hair and Nails of dead Bodies grows We shall not trouble our selves to recite the several Disputes of several Physicians and Philosophers upon this Subject but only produce our own Judgment confirm'd by the Testimonies and Observations of several Physicians Among the rest I must not omit Ambrose Paraeus who writes that he kept the dead Body of a Thief that was hang'd in his House by him embalm'd and dry'd it to preserve it from putrefaction whose Hair and Nails being by him several times cut and par'd he observ'd to grow again to their usual Length But I need not the Testimony of Paraeus tho a Person of great Credit as having been a Witness of the same much nearer home XXV In the Year 1636 the Plague raging at Nimeguen where I then pâ—…actic'd one of the chief Magistrates Children dying of the Distemper which the Father after all his other Vaults were fill'd with his Relations was resolv'd to bury in a Third of his own that had not been open'd in 78 years for the Burial as I think of his Great Grandfather at the opening of which Vault he desir'd me to be present and to see whether the Body were dried up as other Bodies bury'd in the same Church were observ'd to be Thereupon opening the Coffin we found
are composed out of the Similar And yet among those Similar Parts which compose the Organic never did any one reck'n the Blood or Spirits as Similar Parts For all the Organs ought to derive their Composition from those things which are proper and fixed not from those things which are common to all and fluid continually wasted and continually renewed IX Therefore the Body of Man may exist intire in its Parts without Blood Spirits and Air but it cannot act nor live without ' em And thus a Man cannot be said to live without a rational Soul and to be a perfect and entire Man yet every one knows that the Soul is not to be reck'n'd among the parts of the corruptible Body as being incorruptible subsisting of it self and separable from the rest of the Body since that being incorruptible it cannot proceed from any incorruptible Body but derives it self from a divine and heavenly Original and is infused from above into the corruptible Body to the end it may act therein so long as the Health and Strength of those corruptible Instruments will permit Actions to be perform'd To which we may add that an Anatomist when he enquires into the parts of human Body considers 'em as such not as endu'd with Life nor as the parts of a Rational Creature Neither does he accompt the Causes of Life and Actions by any manner of Continuity or Unity adhering to the Body to be Parts nor is it possible for him so to do And thus it is manifest from what has been said That the Spirits and Blood and other Humors neither are nor can be said to be Parts of our Body Yet all these Arguments will not satisfy the most Eminent I. C. Scaliger who in his Book de Subtil Exercit. 280. Sect. 6. pretends with one Argument as with a strong battering Ram to have ruin'd all the Foundations of our Opinion If the Spirit saith he and he concludes the same Thing of the Blood and Spirits be the Instrument of the Soul and the Soul is the beginning of Motion and the Body be the Thing moved there must of Necessity be a Difference between the thing moved and that which moves the Instrument Therefore if the Spirits are not animated there will be something between the thing enlivening and enliven'd forming and form'd which is neither form'd nor enliven'd But the Body is mov'd because it is enliven'd Yet is it not mov'd by an external but an internal Principle Now it is manifest that the Spirits are also internal and that the internal Principle of Motion is in them therefore it follows that they must be part of the Member But this Argument of the most acute Scaliger tho' it seems fair to the Eye at first sight yet thoroughly considered will appear to be without Force as not concluding any thing of Solidity against our Opinion For the Spirit is no more an Instrument that moves the Body than the Air is the Instrument that moves the Sight or Hearing So neither are the Spirits the Instrument of the Soul but only the necessary Medium by which the active Soul moves the instrumental Body and also perceives and judges of that Motion so made in that Body So that it is no such Absurditie as Scaliger would have it to be but a Necessity that there should be something inanimate between the enlivening Soul and the instrumental Body enliven'd which is part of neither but the Medium by which the Action of the enliven'd instrumental Body may be perform'd by the enlivening Soul But saies Scaliger the Body is moved because it is enlivened and that not by an external but an internal Principle We grant the whole yet we deny the Spirits to be the internal Principle when it is most apparent that the Soul is the internal Principle which operates by the assistance of the Spirits So that it cannot from hence be proved that the Spirits live or are Parts of the Body but only that they are the Medium by which the Soul moves the Body But because that Scaliger spy'd at a distance a most difficult Objection viz. How the Spirits could be a Part of any corporeal Body when they are always flowing and never in any constant Rest but continually in Motion through all the Parts of the Body indifferently to avoid this Stroak he says that the Spirit 's a quarter of that part of the Body where they are at the present time and when they flow out of that part then they become a part of that Body into which they next infuse themselves and so onward But this way of concluding of Arguments is certainly very insipid and unbeseeming so great a Man when it is plain from the Definition of a Part that a part of our Body is not any fluid and transient Substance but as it is joyned to the Body by Continuity and Rest. X. The Parts of the Body are twofold 1. In respect of their Substance 2. In respect of their Functions XI In respect of their Substance they are divided into Similar and Dissimilar XII Similar Parts are those which are divided into Parts like themselves So that all the Particles are of the same Nature and Substance And thus every part of a Bone is a Bone of a Fiber a Fiber Which Spigelius calls Consimiles or altogether alike the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of like Parts They are commonly reckoned to be ten Bones Gristles Ligaments Membranes Fibers Nerves Arteries Veins Flesh and Skin To these by others are added the Scarf-Skin Tendons and Fat By others the two Humors in the Eyes the Glassie and the Crystalline by others the Marrow the Brain and Back-Bone And lastly by others the Hair and Nails Of these some are simply Similar as the Bones Gristles Fibres c. wherein there is no difference of Particles to the Sight I say manifest to the Sight for that in respect of the several smallest Elements not to be perceived by the Eyes but by the Mind of which they are composed no part of 'em can be said to be really and simply Similar Others are only Similar as to the Senses wherein there is a difference of Particles manifest to the Sight as a Vein Arterie Nerve c. For a Vein consists of the most subtile Fibers and a Membrane An Arterie of Fibers and a double different Tunicle A Nerve consists of the Dura and Pia Mater or Membrane little Fibers and Marrow Nevertheless to a slight and careless Sight they seem to be Similar because they are every where composed after the same manner and so are like to themselves as not having any other Substance or Composition in the Brain than in the Foot or any other Parts Of the several similar Parts we shall afterwards discourse in their proper Places Now all the similar and solid parts in the first forming of the Birth are drawn like the Lines of a rough Draught in Painting out of the Seed to which the Blood and milkie Juice
are melted and made fit to receive and gently cherish the Eggs falling out of the Ovaries through the Tubes into the Womb. For if the Eggs should fall into a dry womb they would produce no more than the Seed of a Plant cast into dry Ground For as nothing comes of that Seed unless sow'd in a Ground moisten'd with a tepid Humidity so nothing comes of the Egg unless it fall into a womb watered with a convenient lukewarm Moisture XXII Some will say this cannot be so for the Eggs of Fowl do not fall into a moist womb but into a dry Nest and yet a Chicken is hatch'd out of this Egg. I answer That as for Birds and other Creatures that lay Eggs there is not the same Reason for them neither do they require any such Moisture of the womb or thicker part of the masculine Seed but only the Fomentation of Warmth For being to hatch Chickens without themselves provident Nature has provided for them within the shells of the Eggs what was requisite and could not be conferr'd by any thing extrinsic that is a copious convenient Moisture wherein the spirituous part of the male Seed may form out of it self what is to be form'd and nourish it also with the same till it comes to the maturity of a Chicken And therefore it is that the Eggs of Fowl have a Yolk which is deny'd to all the Eggs of Creatures that bring forth living Conceptions In which sort of Creatures it neither is nor could be so For they being to bring forth large Births there could not be Nourishment sufficient contained in little Eggs by which the Birth might be augmented and nourished to such a Bigness Hence it is of necessity that extensive Nourishment must flow into the Eggs and come to the Birth and first the thicker parts of the male Seed already melted ought gently to receive the new form'd Body and nourish it by Apposition and then other more copious Nourishment must be conveighed by the Mother to the womb for the Nourishment of the large Birth Having thus spoken sufficiently in general of the matter of the Seed now let us a little more accurately consider the spirituous Part. XXIII Hippocrates discoursing of the spirituous Part writes in several Places that the Seed falls from all Parts that is to say that something is generated in every Part resembling the nature of the Part which being conveighed from each part to the Stones and mix'd with the thicker Matter together with that same thicker Matter composes the Seed containing in it self the Ideas of all and every part XXIV Aristotle ascribes a celestial Nature to this spiritual Part like the nature of the Stars For saith he there is in the Seed of all Creatures that which renders the Seed fruitful and is called Heat and yet no Fire nor any such Quality but a Spirit which is contained in the Seed and frothy Body as also Nature that is the Soul which is in that Spirit answerable in proportion to the Element of the Stars XXV Now that we may inquire more narrowly into the Original and Nature of this spirituous Part of the Seed we are first to understand that it is a most subtle Body produced by another Body having a fitness by the help of external Causes to produce and form another Body like to that from which it had its own Modelling For when this Body has gain'd a proper Matter wherein to subsist it is together with that matter deposited in a convenient place and freed from all Incumbrances XXVI That it is a Body is apparent because it is subject to corporeal Laws Putrefaction Corruption and Change c. and is produc'd by a Body and not from a rational Soul from which if it were produc'd it could not be corrupted for that being incorruptible must generate something incorruptible like it self But that it is corrupted is apparent in the Emission of fruitful Seed from which no Conception happens for then nothing is generated out of it but it perishes and is corrupted like other corruptible Substances XXVII That it is produced out of a Body is plain from hence that it is generated and not created As also that it is produced out of the Substance of the Seed dissolv'd by the ambient Heat and Moisture loosning the conjoyn'd Mass of the mix'd Body and is nothing else but a thin Vapour fluid and moveable volatiliz'd by the Heat For which reason it would easily fly away unless it were detain'd as being wrapt about by the thicker Particles of the Seed not so apt for Volatility and by and by straitly enclosed by the womb and its proper Membranes and in regard of its salt Particles of which for the most part it consists it were somewhat inclin'd to fixation and so were hindered and stop'd in its Flight XXVIII That it has an Aptitude from the convenient Matter of which it self consists and wherein it inheres by the help of external Causes to produce and form a Body like to that from whence it proceeded Experience teaches us But whence that Aptitude proceeds is not altogether so manifest XXIX That the Figures and Forms of Bodies arise from the various Constitution partly of the forming Cause partly of the Matter out of which they are compounded is a thing confessed among the Philosophers In Generation therefore a just and due Constitution and Disposition of the Matter is required that the formal Cause may act upon it and form and generate something out of it Now the foresaid Spirit rooted in the Seed containing in it self the forming Form call'd Nature both has and perfects that requisite disposition of Matter and that is the first Agent or Principle of the forming of the Birth and also the first and next Matter of the Parts to be delineated For there is a certain efficient Spirit infused into all natural Seeds which arising out of the thinnest and most volatile salt and sulphury Particles of the Seed it self concocted after a particular manner by the Heat and intermixed with the more fixed Particles of the Seed is the primary cause of Formation and the primary and next matter of the Body to be form'd and actuates the other Particles of the Seed and as it were leads the Dance of natural Motions which being coagulated absent extinct or suffocated there can be no Generation Now if such a Spirit be contain'd in all Seeds then certainly in the Seed of Man XXX Now a small Particle of this Spirit contains in it self the Ideas of all and singular the Parts of the whole Body which Parts it is able again to form out of it self when by the Assistance of the Uterine Heat being somewhat loosen'd and freed from the thicker Mass of the Seed it advances toward the Ovaries and enters the Eggs and in them now carried through the Tubes into the Womb it is agitated mov'd and rouz'd into Action For being agitated it acts
an Embryo at the beginning no bigger than an Emmet what Parts are already form'd with the beating Heart Which tho' it be the defect of our Sight yet Reason sufficiently teaches us that all the Parts are delineated together since the Harmony of all together is so great and so necessary that they cannot subsist or act one without another And indeed it seems but probable that the forming Spirits contain'd in the Bubble and beginning the Formation of all the Parts more vigorously perform their Work and more speedily strengthen and perfect all Parts already delineated after they are at more Liberty from the thicker Colliquation as being assisted by the Heat of the Heart excited and kindled by a particular Fermentation But certain it is that before that Assistance they began the Formation of all and singular the Parts Of which tho' such and such first appear in the forming whereof most Spirits were employ'd and of which there is the greatest Necessity for their Use however this does not exclude the Delineation of the rest of the Parts which our Sight cannot discern XLIII Here if any one will object that perhaps the spermatick Parts are delineated together but that the bloody Parts are afterwards of necessity to be produc'd I answer that when we speak of the Formation of the Parts we speak of the first Delineations or Out-lines of all the Parts and all those we say are form'd out of the Seed alone into which the bloody Nutriment is afterwards infused by which they acquire a greater Bulk and Bigness Yet in the mean time there is no bloody part in the whole Body which is not intermixed with spermatic Threads and so no part can truly be said to be form'd out of the Blood and to subsist without a spermatic Foundation This was the ancient Opinion of Hippocrates All the Members says he are discerned and augmented together not one before or after another only those that are naturally bigger are seen before the other tho' they were not form'd before And in another place There is not in my Opinion any beginning of the Body but all the Parts seem equally to be both beginning and end together For the Circle being drawn there is no end to be found Now what Parts are first visible how the order of Formation proceeds gradually as far as the Eye can discern is elegantly described by Harvey Tract de generat Animal whom the Reader may do well to consult together with Antony Everard in his Lib. de Ortu Animal XLIV But now seeing the form'd Parts came once to associate to themselves and assimilate the Nourishment brought 'em and so begin to grow by Nutrition seeing the Heart also begins its natural Action of Sanguification from its smallest Point or Beginning Some more curiously inquire whether the Brain which is very soft in the Embryo makes animal Spirits and by their Assistance performs animal Actions I answer That as the Actions of many parts are idle at first as of the Lungs Eyes Ears Teeth and Stones c. Of which there is no absolute Necessity at the Beginning so the Actions of the Brain Liver and Spleen being more necessary begin at the Beginning but so weakly by reason of the Infirmity of the Organs that they cannot be discern'd But by degrees the more perfect they grow the more perceptible they are And hence it is probable that the Brain at the beginning may begin to make animal Spirits but very few and very weak because there is less need of 'em at the beginning But the stronger the Brain grows and the more need of Spirits there is the stronger and more vigorous Spirits it makes As is apparent by that time a woman has gone half her time when the Child begins to stir which Motion cannot be perform'd without those more plentiful Spirits And from that time the Brain is so corroborated that at length it begets more plentiful and vigorous Spirits fit to perform the chiefest animal Actions Which principal Actions however are idle in the Birth inclosed in the Womb where there is no occasion or necessity of Imagination Thought or Memory But the Infant being born the Brain increasing in Strength begets more vigorous and efficacious Spirits Therefore Children as they are weaker of Body so are they weaker in their Intellectuals Because the Faculties of the Soul do not well perform their Offices till the Organs are perfect only the Feeling and moving Faculties begin to act from the time of the Childs quickning For from that time the Motion of the Infant is peceived by the Mother and the Birth sympathizes with the Mothers Pains Which Cardanus proves by pouring cold water upon the Belly of the Mother for thereby the Infant will beforc'd to move in the womb and by that means he tries whether women with Child are quick or no. XLV I shall here add one thing more which is controverted among the Philosophers whether the Infant wakes and sleeps in the Womb Avicen utterly denies any such thing However Women with Child will tell ye that they manifestly feel the Motion of the Child when it is awake and the resting of it when it sleeps But we are to say that Sleep is the Rest of the Senses for the repairing and renewing the animal Spirits wasted by watching occasioned by the Contraction of the Pores and Passages of the Brain On the contrary that Wakefulness is a convenient opening of the Pores of the Brain and flowing in of the animal Spirits through them into the Organs of the Senses sufficient for the performance of their Actions But neither of these can be said to belong to the birth included in the womb For First the Spirits are not wasted but only few and those weak are made and therefore the Rest which is in the Infant unborn cannot be call'd Sleep because it proceeds not from the Causes of Sleep that is to say the wast of the Spirits and the Contraction of the Pores of the brain nor has it the end of Sleep which is the Restoration of decay'd and wasted Spirits Secondly The Motion of the Infant cannot be said to be waking because it wants the true Causes of waking which is the opening of the Pores of the brain and an Influx of Spirits into the Organs of Sense sufficient to perform the Actions of the Senses The first cannot be by reason of the extream Moisture and Softness of the brain Nor the latter by reason there is not as yet generated a sufficient Quantity of Spirits Moreover the Motion and Feeling of the Infant does not presuppose a necessity of waking For that men grown up and matur'd by age when fast asleep many times tumble and toss in their Sleep and sometimes walk and talk and being prick'd feel and contract their injured Members and yet never wake Therefore we must conclude that the Infant in the womb cannot be truly said to sleep or wake but only sometimes to rest and sometimes to be
mov'd XLVI Here perhaps by way of a Corollary some one may ask me what is that same Architectonic Vertue latent in the prolific Seed which performs the Formation of the Parts In the foregoing Chapter we have discoursed at large concerning the enlivening Spirit implanted in the Prolific Seed as it is the Subject of the first forming Spirit but because no Spirit of it self and by its own Power seems able to perfect Generation unless it have in its self some effective Principle by virtue whereof it produces that Effect hence the Question arises what that is that affords that active Force to the Spirit and power to form a living body and endues the Matter with all manner of Perfection and produces Order Figure Growth Number Situation and those other things which are observed in living bodies Which is a thing hitherto unknown and has held the Minds of all Philosophers in deep Suspense Of whom the greatest part have rather chosen tacitly to admire the Supream Operator and his work than to unfold him and so affirm with Lactantius That Man contributes nothing to his Birth but the Matter which is the Seed but that all the rest is the handy work of God the Conception the forming of the Body the inspiration of the Soul and the conservation of the Parts In which sense says Harvey most truly and piously does he believe who deduces the Generations of all things from the same Eternal and Omnipotent Deity upon whose pleasure depends the Universality of the things themselves But others who believe that the Bounds of Nature are not so slightly to be skipped over nor think that in the Inquiries after the Principles of Generation there is such a necessity to have recourse to the first Architect and Governour of the whole Universe but that the first forming and efficient Cause created by God with the Things themselves and infus'd and planted within 'em is to be sought out of the Things themselves more arrogantly have presum'd to give us a clearer Explication of the Matter by Philosophical Reason yet differing in their Opinions which are various and manifold XLVII For Galen calls this Architectonic Power sometimes by the name of Nature sometimes Natural Heat sometimes the Inbred Temperament sometimes the Spirit which he affirms to be a Substance of it self moveable and always moveable Aristotle distinguishing between the Heat or Spirit of the Seed and Nature asserts the Artichectonic Power to be that Nature which is in the Spirit of the Seed and therefore distinct from the Spirit it self which is inherent in the Spirit as in its Subject and acts upon the Spirit as its Matter This Nature in the Spirit of the Seed was also acknowledged by Hippocrates saying That it is learned tho' it has not learnt rightly to act Not that it is Rational but because as Galen explains it it acts of it self all that is necessary to be acted without any direction Hence Deusingius defines it to be a certain immaterial Substance arising out of the Matter so determin'd to the Matter by the Supream God that it can neither be nor subsist nor operate without it This same Architectonic Vertue others with Avicen call the Intelligence others with Averrhoes and Scotus a Coelestial Force or a Divine Efficacy Iacob Scheggius calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 active or forming Reason and says that by the word Reason or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he understands a Substantial Form which is not to be apprehended by Sense but by the Understanding and Reason And so while he seems to speak something he says nothing at all XLVIII The Platonics call it a General Soul diffus'd through the whole World which according to the diversity of Materials and Seeds produces various Generations as a Plant from the Seed of a Plant a Man from the Seed of a Man a Horse from that of a Horse a Fish from that of a Fish c. But Plotin the great Platonist distinguishes this same Architectonic Vertue from the Platonic Soul of the World as produc'd from that by which it is produc'd and therefore he calls it Nature flowing from the Soul of the World which he says is the Essential Act of it and the Life depending upon it Themistius says that the forming Power is the Soul inclos'd in the Seed potentially enliven'd Deusingius in his Original of the Soul calls it Nature in the Seed that is as he explains himself a Soul potentially subsisting in the Seed being in it self the Beginning and Cause of Motion But in a Body already form'd he calls it the Soul actually subsisting And so without any necessity at all distinguishes one and the same thing into two and gives it two distinct names as it either rests or acts and according to the diversity of the Subject to be form'd or else already form'd Just as if a man distinguishing between a Painter lazily sleeping or painting awake should call the one Nature latent in his Spirit as one that could paint if he were awake and the other a real Painter as one actually painting as if the Painter that slept were not as much a Painter as he that actually painted Whereas as it appears by the Effects that which is able to form a Body at first out of the Seed and that which actually forms were not one and the same thing and so by a certain continuation the form of the thing formed remains This Opinion of his Deusingius seems to have drawn from the Institutes of the Platonists who distinguish between the Soul and Being a Soul that is between the Substance of the Soul which is said to be in the Seed and the Appellation of Nature and the Soul which acts at this prâ—…sent and is the form of the form'd Body Fernelius calls the Plastic Power a Spirit but he does not mean such a common Spirit which the Physicians say is rais'd by the preparations of the Bowels out of the Humours but some other Spirit of far sublimer Excellency For says he this Spirit is an Ethereal Body the Seat and Bond of Heat and the Faculties and the first Instrument of the Duty to be perform'd And Lib. 2. de Abdit c. 10. he believes it to be something that flows down from Heaven For says he the Heaven without any Seed produces many both Creatures and Plants but the Seed generates nothing without the Heaven The Seed only prepares aptly and conveniently Materials for the begetting of Things the Heaven sends into the Matter prepar'd Form and consummate Perfection and raises Life in all Things A little after he adds One Form of Heaven within its Power comprehends all the Forms that ever were or can be of all Creatures Plants Stones and Metals and impregnated with those innumerable Forms casts as in a Mold and generates all things out of it self XLIX Others believe the Plastic Vertue to be a certain Power flowing into the Seed from the Soul of
the Mother Others call it a Vegetative Soul and make no distinction between this and Nature but say that Fertile Seed of necessity must be enlivened This Soul of the Seed Iulius Scaliger and Ludovicus Mercatus stiffly defend And Sennertus following their footsteps Institut Med. lib. 1. cap. 10. has these words They seem all to me to be in an Error who deny the Soul which is the Cause of Formation to be in the Seed For if you grant the forming power to be in the Seed you must allow the Soul to be likewise in it For in regard the Powers are not separable from the Soul of which they are the Powers it is impossible that the Powers proper to any thing should be in a Subject wherein the Form is not from whence the Power slows And since we come to the knowledge of the latent Essence by the Operations what 's the reason we do not attribute a Soul to the Seed that sufficiently manifests it self therein by its Operations But they are two the enlivening of the Seed and the Conception and the forming of all the parts that are necessary for the Actions of Life For every Soul as is manifest in the Seed of Plants is preserv'd while the Soul is in it and remains prolific for some time and while it is sound and uncorrupted in a proper place and with convenient Nourishment operates as living and exercises its operations upon the matter at hand which is not only to be seen in some Creatures by the Action it self but in the regenerating of some parts especially in Plants For the same Operations are observ'd in the Seed and in Plants sound in all their parts which shew the same Agent in both For it is altogether the same Operation whereby the Soul latent in the Seed forms the Body of the Plant out of the Matter attracted and afterwards every year restores the fallen Leaves and gather'd Flowers and thrusts out new Branches and new Roots and therefore it is a sign and Argument of the same Faculty and of the same Soul And this not only in Plants but also in the Seeds of perfect Creatures must of necessity be allow'd to be done For as the Flesh is not made out of Blood unless the Flesh it self enliven'd change the Blood into Flesh much less shall a Creature be made of Seed if the Seed want a Soul And a little after he adds For the Body of Creatures being the most excellent and perfect it follows that what is not enlivened cannot be the principal Cause of the enlivened Body but that the Body enlivened is produced by a Body enlivened as the principal Cause And certainly these Arguments of Sennertus are of great weight to prove that there is a Vegetative Soul in all generated Bodies which is also stiffly maintain'd by Deusingius De Gener. Foet in Utero part 2. sect 1. L. But because a Doubt may here arise from whence the Seed has this Soul it will not be amiss to add something for the clearer illustration and confirmation of the said Opinion We must know then that all and singular the parts of a living animated Body ought to participate of that Soul and to live by it and hence that which is separated to the perfection of the Seed out of the several parts ought also to participate of the same Soul which is also to intermix with the Mass of the Seed And because out of all and every part something of most spirituous parts like Atoms is allow'd to the making and perfection of the Seed hence it comes to pass that the Epitome of the whole animated Body endu'd with the like Soul is contain'd in the Seed and that Soul the Seed being deposited in a convenient place is separated from the thicker parts of the Seed by the Heat with that same Matter of the Seed wherein it inheres that is to say the most spirituous part divided from all and every the other parts and rows'd into Action and so throughout forms a resemblance to that form which is separated together with that same subtile part of the Seed unless prevented and hinder'd in its Operation or that it be extinguish'd and suffocated by any defect of the Heat or circumfus'd Matter LI. But it may be objected That the Forms of animated Beings are indivisible and hence that no parts of the Soul can be separated from the single parts but that those parts meeting together in the Seed constitute the whole and entire Soul To which I answer That the Forms of animated Beings are not of themselves divisible however they may be divided according to the division of the Matter so that the Matter be such wherein the Soul can commodiously lye hid and out of which it may be rais'd again to its duty by the natural Heat temper'd to a convenient degree This is apparent to the Eye in a Willow wherein any Bough being torn off from the Tree the Soul is divided according to the division of the Matter and as it remains in the Tree it self so likewise in the Bough as appears by its Operation For that Bough being planted in a moist Ground the present Soul acts in it forthwith and produces Leaves Roots and Boughs and the Mother Tree it self shews no less the presence of the Soul in it self by the same Operations So likewise in Creatures that same spirituous Essence which is separated from all the several living parts to be carried to the Seed participates of the same Soul of the parts out of which it is separated as being able to afford a convenient Domicil for the Soul seeing that where such a Domicil cannot be afforded the living Soul fails and so being mix'd with the Seed it causes the Seed to be potentially animated if the substance of the Seed be rightly tempered which Soul potentially lying hid therein the Seed being deposited in a convenient place being afterwards freed from the Fetters of the thicker Substance wherein it is enclos'd is rais'd into Action and acting forms out of the Subject wherein it inheres like parts to those out of which the Separation was made as being of the same Species with the Soul out of which it was separated LII And therefore when it is said by Aristotle and other Philosophers That the Soul lies hid potentially only in the Seed this is not to be understood as if the Essence of the Soul were not present but in reference to its being intangled in the other thicker Matter of the Seed so that it cannot act till disintangled from it the Seed being deposited in some convenient place by the Heat which dissolves the said Matter but so separated it acts forthwith and out of its spirituous Subject separated from the parts of the Creature delineates and forms what is to be form'd and increases it with the next adjacent Nutriment For the Seed being of the number of Efficients and seeing every Agent acts not as it is potentially but actually such
nothing to its life This is apparent from hence for that the Immortal Soul cannot give Mortal Life of which it is destitute it self to a Body corruptible and separable from it For whatever gives a living Form to a Body that also gives a Life and Form like to it self as is apparent in all Brutes and Plants Therefore if the Rational Soul were to give a Form to the Body it would of necessity give an Immortal Form like its own such a one as is not in the Body LVIII Moreover it is hardly to be believ'd that when the Parts came first to be delineated that the Rational Soul should be present at that beginning aâ—… the first Agent and more improbable to be believed that when the Embryo first delineated is cast out of the womb by Abortion no bigger than an Emmet or a small Pea from a Body hardly discernable a Rational Soul should be cast forth at the same time that should be liable to give an account of Good and Evil Actions at the last Day or else to perish with it Nor is it for us to judge of heavenly Matters above the reach of our Understandings especially of the time of the Infusion of this Rational Soul Though they seem to determine something probable concerning it who judging rightly according to Truth that the Rational Soul is created by God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or immediately assert with St. Austin That the Soul is infus'd by Creation and created by Infusion that is that it was not first fram'd in Heaven to be sent into the form'd Body but that it is united to the Body at the moment of Creation and created at the very moment of Infusion But whether that Creation and Association happens at the beginning of the forming of the Body or whether in the first second third or fourth Month or in any other Month after the Birth began to be form'd or at what time the Body may be fit to receive the Soul that is not our business so accurately to enquire into for that the Body must be fit to receive the Soul and that if the Body undergo any material Change of its Temperament and Confirmation presently the Soul takes its flight as Galen acknowledges But our Apprehension is not sufficiently perspicacious for us punctually to understand that precise time which is only known to God the Creator of the Soul and therefore says Willis When all things were rightly dispos'd for its reception it was created immediately of God and pour'd into the Body And therefore it is only for Philosophers to inquire into the Original of that same perishing Life in the body of Man which is the Habitacle of the Rational Soul in this Vale of Misery for a Time which Life upon good grounds we affirm to be far different from the Life of a Rational Soul nor can arise from it The second Argument which I produce is this The Rational Soul is infus'd either into the Seed or into the Birth when form'd The first is not true for then upon any effusion of fertile Seed not follow'd by Conception a Soul would be lost and so all Divines would commit a heinous sin of public Soul-murder in suffering young lusty Men to marry Women above Fifty knowing there can be no Production from such unequal Matches To which if it be answer'd That the Seed of the Man never proves fertile but when mix'd with the Seed of the Woman I answer That the efficient Power is all in the Man's Seed and that the Womans Seed is only material and the next Alimentary Principle If therefore that efficient Power first forming the Birth were the Rational Soul it self it ought to be solely in the Man's Seed and in that case the Divines and Law-givers could not exempt themselves from Soul-murder from which however all Men readily excuse 'em even those that hold the Soul to be propagated If the latter be true let the opposing Party tell us what was the first Moving or efficient Cause in the Seed which began to move and enliven the Seed before the Infusion of the Rational Soul Of necessity it must be something else besides the Rational Soul and therefore the Vegetative Soul But Philosophers teach us that in every living Compound there can be but one Soul and that in Man comprehends the Vegetative within it self and that the latter is only an Accident and tempering of the Substance that is to say the innate Heat and such a disposition of the Heart Brains and other Bowels as also of the Spirits themselves as is in a condition to act and therefore there cannot be two distinct Souls in Man one Vegetative the other Rational But tho' Aristotle of old and many Philosophers now teach the same Doctrine it is not to be thence inferr'd that the Doctrine is true they are Men and may Err. The foregoing Reasons sufficiently demonstrate the thing to be otherwise and abundantly inform us That the Life of the Body would be perpetual if the Rational Soul were once to enliven it For wherefore should it be less able to do it in the end than at the beginning when it can suffer no diminution of its Faculties and if at the beginning it disposes the Matter for Life why should it not proceed and do it without end Moreover seeing that a Vegetative Soul is admitted among Brutes as the only Mistress and Enlivener of the Organical Body wherefore may not such a Soul be admitted in the Body of Man which is no less corruptible than the Body of the Beast To this we may add That the diversity of Actions the necessity of two Souls in Man is apparent For the Flesh covets against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh. And this Intestine War every Man has Experience of in himself For the Corporeal Soul abiding in the Body inclines a Man to Sensual Pleasures the Rational which is of a higher Original dehorts us to abstain from mischievous Lust and invites us to Holiness and raises our thoughts from things perishable and Earthy to things Divine and Incorruptible This Civil War Medea felt in her self whence she cried out Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor The better things I see and do approve The worse I follow after seek and love LIX Lastly The Corporeal Soul tho' it not only apprehend Things in their simple Capacity but laying several Things together makes Conclusions after its own manner as appears from the Actions of Dogs Apes Elephants c. yet are its Actions far inferiour to those of the Rational Soul For this not only beholds the Idea's conceiv'd by the Fancy of that Corporeal Soul but also judges whether they are true or false good or ill disordered or in order and often stops the fury of the Corporeal Soul unsteadfastly roving through various Phantasms and recalling it from these or those Conceptions directs it to others and at its own pleasure bounds it within certain Limits lest it should stray
and Nutrition is perform'd in all the boughs which cannot be perform'd by a part of the Soul but by all the Soul And so the foresaid Maxim of the Peripatetics may be rightly expounded which nevertheless has hitherto by many Philosophers been too hastily rejected as false and impossible LXV Among those that have not rightly apprehended the learned Willis seems to have been one who in his 4. Chap. de anim Brutor thus writes The Corporeal Soul says he in more perfect Brutes and common to Man is extended to the whole Organical Body and vivifies actuates and irradiates both its several Parts and Humours so that it seems to subsist in both of them actually and to have as it were its imperial Seats But the immediate Subjects of the Soul are the vital Liquor or the Blood circulated by a perpetual Circulation of the Heart Arteries and Veins and the animal Liquor or nervous Iuice flowing gently within the Brain and its Appendixes The Soul inhabits and graces with its Presence both these Provinces but as it cannot be wholly together in both at once it actuates them both as it were divided and by its Parts For as one Part living within its Blood is of a certain fiery Nature being enkindled like a Flame So the other being diffused through the animal Liquor seems as it were Light or the Rayes of Light slowing from that Flame And a little after There are therefore Corporeal Souls according to its two chief Functions in the Organical body viz. the Vital and the Animal two distinct Parts that is to say the Flamy and the Lucid. LXVI From this Text of Willis it appears that the most famous Person conceived a new Opinion of the Soul but less congruous to Reason For First He alledges that the Soul besides the Parts of the Body enlivens likewise the Humours and Spirits wherein he very much deviates from the Truth For that the Humours and Spirits do not live but they would live were they enliven'd by a Soul Secondly Seeing that Life cannot be ascribed to the fluid Nourishments continually passing away nor joyn'd to the whole in Continuity but only to the real Parts of the Body Willis seems tacitly to take it for a thing not to be question'd that the Blood and animal Spirits are the true Parts of an animated Body no less than the solid Parts adhering to the whole in Continuity which that it is not true we have demonstrated in the first Chapter of this Book Thirdly He asserts that the Blood and animal Spirits are the immediate Subjects of the Soul the contrary to which is apparent for that the immediate Subjects of the Soul are the Parts themselves of the Body among which neither the Blood nor Spirits nor any other of the Humours are to be numbered Fourthly Contrary to Reason he constitutes two Parts of the Body one Fierie or Flammeous another Lucid and ascribes to each particular Seats to the one the Blood to the other the animal Liquor for thus the Soul that had no Feet before will have two Feet in this our Age and with one Foot shall tread upon the Blood with the other upon the animal Liquor Yet lest the Soul having broken one Leg by Accident should chance to fall provident Dr. Willis has provided her a third Leg. But besides these two Members says he of the Soul fitted to the individual Body a certain other Portion of it taken from both and as it were the Epitome of the whole Soul is placed apart for the Conservation of its Species This as it were an Appendix of the vital Flame growing up in the Blood is for the most part Lucid or Light and consists of animal Spirits which being collected into a certain little Bundle and having got an appropriate Humour are hidden up among the spermatic bodies And thus the Soul that formerly knew neither how to walk or stand now shall stand more firmly supported with three Leggs And yet with all her three Leggs she will halt not without danger of falling and therefore if any one could furnish her with a fourth Leg then she would not only stand more stoutly but proceed equally in all her Actions without halting like a strong fourfooted Horse But setting the Jest aside it is apparent from what has been said that the learned Willis did not rightly understand the Maxim of the Peripatetics and for that Reason miserably mangl'd and divided the Soul indivisible so far as it abides in the whole into several Parts at his own Pleasure whereas it is the same and of the same Nature in all the Parts If any one should here object That the Seed is also potentially animated and that from thence it is manifest that the Humours may live and be animated as well as the Parts of the Body which we have so strenuously deny'd I answer that the Seed is no nutritive Humour like the Blood and animal Liquor nor is any longer a part of the individual Body Iohn or Peter from whence it is separated but a specific Juice containing in it self a Compendium of the whole Man and the Ideas of all the Parts and therefore the Soul may lie hid therein as in all the Parts of the whole Body till at length separated from its Entanglements by Heat it declares its being present by its enlivening Actions Which enlivening Actions never proceed nor can proceed from any nutritive Humours or redundant after Nourishment LXVII But seeing the Philosophers of our Age leave no Stone of Enquiry unturn'd nor are ever at rest till they have found out something in their most obscure Searches whereby to perswade themselves and others that they are within reach of the Truth I would have them now explain to us what this vegetable Soul is which is the first efficient and Protoplastic Principle in the Formation of the Birth For otherwise if we were to acquiesce in the Name alone the efficient Principle might be affirm'd to be rather a Chimera than an efficient Principle If perhaps any one shall say with Aristotle That the Soul is the beginning of Motion Or That it is the first Act of a natural body potentially having Life Or with Ferneliâ—…s That it is the Perfection of an Organic body and whatever shall give Life to that body and introduce vital Actions Or with Sennertus That it is an Act and substantial Form by which such a body is animated Or with some of our modern Philosophers That it is the first matter of Fermentation and Formation and that Life is nothing else but Fermentation These are all meer Words and meer Chimeras For by such words the Essence of the Soul is no way unfolded Nor does it appear what that beginning of Motion or what that first Act is nor what that Perfection or substantial Form or first matter of Fermentation is In Man alone we know the rational Soul its Divinity and its Immortality only by Revelation and Faith and by its wonderful and
divine Operations But no Man unfolds that substantial Form that first Act that first Matter of Fermentation by which all animate Beings obtain Life and are thence said to live nor what that first Act that Form or Matter is but all Men acquiesce in the Name alone of a Vegetable Soul LXVIII This same Soul I call the vivific Spirit produced out of Corporeal Matter surpassing all other Spirits produced out of Matter Now altho' this Definition of mine be sufficient to denote the Substance it self of the Soul or rather the Subject wherein it abides nevertheless it will not satisfy many who desire a farther Explication of the Nature of this Spirit which however it is better to contemplate in Thought than to express in Words For how or with what Knowledg instructed it forms and joyns the Parts of the Body to be form'd so fitly and with so much decency of Order and Shape he only knows who alone and first of all created all things at the Beginning What it is that rowses it and frees it from the Incumbrances wherewith it is surrounded and brings it upon the Stage of Action has been already sufficiently explain'd that is to say the Heat acting in convenient place and time upon the Seed for that without such a Heat it cannot be dissolved or waken'd out of the thicker Matter LXIX Regius thinks he has found out a way to unfold this Gordian Riddle more clearly and after another manner promising to explain this obscure Mystery of Nature as do many others by manifest Reasons He writes that the Formation of the Birth is perfected by the heat as well of the Womb as of the Seeds by which their Particles are agitated in the Womb and being agitated by reason of their Shapes and Magnitudes which they have acquired in the seminary Passages tempered and shap'd after a certain manner of necessity become in the Womb a perfect prolific Principle of the Creature to be form'd furnished with Alimentary Iuice and cloathed with little Membranes in some Measure resembling the Seeds of Plants Then he adds that this Explication of the Formation of the Birth is so manifest that there is no farther Necessity of framing in the Womb or Seed any Idea Fantasie or Principle of a Soul or any other Faculty to be the Author of Formation But the most learn'd Gentleman who at first sight promises something of a Delphian Oracle in these words does but explain the lesser Obscurity by the greater Obscurity and swelling with an extraordinary Self-Conceit he is pleased with his own Invention as to believe that never any Man ever did or ever will invent any thing more subtilly and ingeniously when as there is nothing in it but Vanity and Ostentation For what others call the Soul of the Seed the vegetative Soul the Plastic Power the Architectonic Vertue c. that he calls certain Shapes and Magnitudes of the Particles of the Seeds more difficult to be apprehended than plastic Power or vegetative Soul And altho' perhaps some Persons may believe that the Artificial Formation of other things without Life may in some Measure be conceived by his mechanic Explication annexed yet does it not from thence appear how the Parts of our living Body are generated out of the diversity of the Shapes and Magnitudes of the Particles of the Seed what should occasion the Heart to be form'd in the middle of the Breast and not in the Abdomen or Head why there should be in that particularly eleven Valves and no more wherefore not two Hearts in one Birth how the Parts receive Life from the Principle of the Birth and what introduces Motion and Actions c. All which with an innumerable number of other things he that will refer to the Shapes and Magnitudes of the Particles of the Seed ought first to tell us what they are and how they are mixed Who does not this proposes his Shapes and Figures as meer Imaginary Chimeras and clears up no Obscurity but wraps us up in more Darkness and while he pretends to tell us something of Novelty and better says nothing at all but intangles an obscure thing in newer but obscurer Terms LXX Lately Tho. Willis has set forth the Substance and Nature of this Soul quite otherwise de an Brut. c. 2. Where after he has asserted the Soul of Brutes which we call Vegetative to be Corporeal and extended through the whole Body and divisible together with the Matter wherein it abides at length concludes that the Soul lying hid in the Blood or Vital Liquor is either a certain Fire or Flame But that we have affirm'd the Soul of a brute says he to be not only Corporeal and extended but that it is of a certain fiery Nature and its Act or Substance is either a Flame or a breath near to or a Kin to Flame besides the large Testimonies of Authors both Ancient and Modern Reasons and Arguments almost demonstrative have also induc'd me to it As to what appertains to the Suffrages of others that I may not seem to insist upon the Authority of a single Gassendus who has maintained this Hypothesis I shall here cite many both ancient Philosophers and Physicians For not to mention Democritus Epicurus Laâ—…rtius Lucretius and their Followers Hippocrates Plato Pythagoras Aristotle Galen with many others tho' disagreeing about other things Yet in this Opinion That the Soul was either a Fire or something Analogical to it they all shook Hands to whom among the Moderns Fernelius Heurnius Cartesius Hogeland and others also have joyn'd themselves and lately Honoratus Faber has delivered in express Words That the Soul of the brute is Corporeal and its Substance Fire LXXI But while the famous Thomas Willis with all those most ingenious Philosophers and Physicians asserts the Soul to be Fire he names indeed a Body of the greatest Activity but such a one as consumes and destroys all things in which and upon which it acts whereas the Soul by its Presence does not destroy those Bodies in which it is and acts but preserves 'em in their soundnss excites the Members to their Functions and defends 'em from Corruption till those Bodies wherein it abides are destroy'd by some other Cause together with the Soul it self Moreover among all those famous men not one could ever teach what it is that forces or instructs that Fire in the Generation of the Creature to adapt and joyn all and singular the parts in such an exact and admirable order together and in every one to perform such various and determin'd Operations as the making the Chylus in the Stomach Blood in the Heart Animal Spirits in the Brain Sight in the Eye Hearing in the Ear Taste in the Tongue why through its extraordinary activity and rapid Motion it does not hinder the Formation of the Organs and rather destroy 'em being form'd then form 'em it self and produce variety of Actions out of each LXXII Moreover the foresaid Thomas
Willis pretending to explain the Soul yet more perspicuously defines it a little after to be a Heap of contiguous Particles existing in a swift Motion And then to shew the nature and original of those Particles he thus proceeds Cap. 4. In Mechanical things Fire Air and Light are chiefly energetical which human Industry is always wont to use for the more stupendious and no less necessary Works In like manner we may believe that the supream Work-master to wit the Great Creator in the beginning did make the greatly active and most subtile Souls of living Creatures out of their Particles as the most active to which he also gave a greater and as it were a supernatural Virtue and Efficacy from the most excellent Structure of the Organs most exquisitely labour'd beyond the Workmanship of any other Machine LXXIII But suppose the Substance of the Organ wherein the Soul most nearly resides to be made out of such Principles and so the Organ of the Soul to be well compos'd what is this to our Enquiry The true Existence of the Soul consists not in the Substance of the Organ but in its own Substance and appears by its Act or Operation As the sight consists not in an Eye well compos'd of good Substance but in the Act of Seeing and perception of the visible Rayes which Act of Sight the Soul accomplishes by means of the Organ of Sight well form'd But now I would fain know what that is which gives life to that heap of Particles constituting the substance of the Soul and by its Presence forms and enlivens the other Parts and excites 'em to so many various wonderful and distinct Operations when it is said that the Soul is a heap of most subtile Particles or a Fire then only by an impropriety of Speech the Thing containing is designed for the Thing contained that is some most subtile Subject wherein the Soul most nearly resides For that properly it is something else besides Fire is apparent from the contrariety of the Actions For the Fire destroys the Soul preserves the Fire destroys Bodies form'd the Soul both forms and produces things not form'd The Fire is sensible of nothing the Soul by means of the sensitive Organs sees hears and tasts c. Hence the most learned Willis tho' a most stout Asserter of his own Opinion at length is forced to distinguish the Soul from its Corporeal Subject For says he as soon as any Matter is dispos'd to receive Life by the Laws of the Creation the Soul which is the foâ—…m of the thing and the Body which is said to be the Matter began to be form'd under a certain Species according to the Character imprinted in ' em LXXIV Therefore the Form that is the Soul is something different from that same Matter which is the next Subject or Habitaculum of the Soul In like manner speaking of the Principles of the Soul As to the first beginnings of the Corporeal Soul says he this as a Shell-fish forms and â—…its its Shell to it self exists somewhat a little sooner and so more noble than the Organical Body Because a certain portion of Animal Spirits or most subtile Animals or a little Soul not yet inkindled lyes hid in the Seminal Humour which having gotten a proper fire place and at length being kindled from the Soul of the Parent acting or leaning to it as a flame from a flame begins to shine forth and unfold it self a little before the first Ground-work of the Body is laid This orders the Web of the Conception and agitates the apply'd Matter c. LXXV Now I would have Dr. Thomas Willis explain what he means by that Little Diminutive Soul not yet enkindled For a heap of Animal Spirits or any Atoms whatever can be nothing but the nearest Matter wherein it abides For such a Subject does not live unless there be in it some living thing to enliven that heap For such a Subject in Generation neither knows how or was ever taught to form delineate compose and enlarge all the Parts in such exact order Which what it is we know not only we find it by its effects Hence Willis himself acknowledges that the Soul cannot be perceived by our Senses but only we understand it by its effects and operations From which words of his it appears that whatever Dr. Willis said before of Fire and a heap of Animal Spirits and Atoms they are only meer and most uncertain Conjectures which denote not the Soul it self but only either its next Subject wherein it abides or by a Similitude of thinnest Body of swiftest Action the manner in some measure of their Actions For to assert that the Soul is a Heap of most subtile Atoms or a Fire is the same as to assert that the Sight is Fire because that by the means of the most subtile moveable Fire its Action is accomplish'd nor can be accomplish'd without it Whereas it is not that same Medium into which the visible Rays are imprinted as the Subject and with it conveigh'd to the Eyes but the perception of those Rays that make the sight As therefore that Percipient is something else quite different from the Air by means of which the visible Rays are convey'd to the visible Organs So the Soul is somewhat else which is different from the Fire or any other heap of Atoms by means of which it subsists and operates in the Body LXXVI From whence it is apparent how absurd that is which Dr. Willis adds Cap. 2. The Existency of the Corporeal Soul depends altogether upon its Act or Life The word depends is ill he should have rather said becomes known For by the Act it self or Life we only discover that such a Soul is present and acts to enliven the Body wherein it abides For Example when I write any thing by that Act it is known that the hand of a writer performs that Act However the Hand that writes is quite different from the Act which is the writing and does not altogether depend upon that Act only by that Act the presence of the Agent is made known Wherefore it is not well added by Dr. Willis The Essence of this begins altogether from Life as it were from the firing of a subtile Matter I say he asserts this erroneously for that the Soul does not begin from Life which nevertheless lies as it were imprisoned in the Seed till with its spirituous Subject wherein it resides it remains wrapt up in the thicker Particles of the Seed from whence being set at liberty in a convenient place by the Heat it begins to act and perform its duty and enliven form nourish and increase the Body where it resides and thus by these actions we discover that such an enlivening Soul is in the Body LXXVII Of the Affections or Passions of this Soul many things might be written which however we purposely omit lest our Digression should be too tedious In the mean while we
so manifestly operates those nobler Actions in Brutes and frequently in some seems to imitate the Actions of the Mind And this is that which we think is to be understood by Analogous to Reason which we can better admire at than explain XLVII Yet no man in his Wits will call this Analogon the Rational Incorruptible Soul since it proceeded from Corporeal Corruptible Matter and is propagated by Generation and not only operates imperfectly but is also corruptible and perishes with the Body whereas the Rational Soul did not proceed from the Matter of the Body but was created apart by God and by him infus'd operates perfect Actions is incorruptible and immortal and is separable from the Body and not only extends its Actions much farther than that corruptible Analogon but to Infinity According to that of the Heathen Prince of Philosophers It remains that the Mind alone comes from without that she is only Divine for no Corporeal Act communicates with her Actions For she contemplates not only the Substances of Things but Things also divested of their Substances She comprehends Knowledge beholds the Invisible God reaches to the Seats of the Blessed dives into the Nature of Offices of Angels with admiration she contemplates her self and knows what she is joyn'd to the Body and what abstracted from it views things long past as present examines Futurity and what will never be Possibilities and Impossibilities and endeavours to comprehend things innumerable and infinite None of which Operations are perform'd by the Analogon Which being Corporeal contemplates only things Corporeal Concerning this Matter has the Learned Willis written most elegantly who after he has alledged the knowing Faculty of the Corporeal Soul to be Fancy or Imagination which comprehends corporeal things under an appearing Image only and not always under a true one at length in these Words But indeed says he the Intellect presiding over the Imagination beholds all the Species deposited in its self discerns or corrects their Obliquities or Hypocrisies sublimes the Phancies thence drawn forth and divesting it from Matter forms universal Things from singular moreover it frames out of those some other more sublime Thoughts not competent to the Corporeal so it speculates both the Nature of every Substance and abstracted from the Individuals of Accident viz. Humanity Rationality Temperance Fortitude Corporeity Spirituality Whiteness and the like besides being carry'd higher it contemplates God Angels its Self Infinity Eternity and many other Notions far remote from Sence and Imagination And so as our Intellect in these kind of Metaphysical Conceptions makes things almost wholly naked of Matter or carrying it self beyond every visible Species of Matter it considers them wholly immaterial this argues certainly that the Substance or Matter of the Rational Soul is immaterial and immortal Because if this Aptness or Disposition were corporeal as it can conceive nothing incorporeal by Sence it should suspect there were no such thing in the World XLVIII Therefore the foresaid Analogon is the more excellent Spirit instructed by Nature produc'd out of corporeal Matter far exceeding the Condition of other Spirits produc'd out of Matter which Aristotle affirm'd to participate of the Nature of the Element of the Stars alledging that there is contain'd in every Seed a certain Spirit nobler than the Body which in Nature and Value answers to the Element of the Stars by which the Formation of the Birth in Brutes and other Actions are perform'd This is that Vivific Spirit which no man hitherto could perfectly describe Which being drawn forth out of the Matter by Heat dissolving the Matter acts again upon the Matter and variously disposes it in such a manner that besides many other Actions it produces the Nobler Actions in Brutes But this Disposition of the Parts which is an Effect of this Spirit or rather of Nature latent in the Spirit and the Medium by which it operates Modern Philosophers contrary to Reason constituted to be the Efficient Cause of the said Operations and so have made the Fabrick of Brutes like the Fabrick of Engines moving by Clock-work not considering that the appropriated disposition of Wheels and other parts in them proceeded not either from the Engine it self or from the Concoction Blowing or Motion of the Air Fire or other Matter but from the Hand of some Artificer who by that disposition carries on that Motion which he design'd in the Engine For Example sake the Wheels and other Parts of a Clock are so dispos'd as to show the Hours yet will it be of no use as to that purpose unless the Artificer pulls up the Weight at prefix'd times and makes the Clock go slower or faster according as the Weights are either lighter or heavier which he hangs on So in Brutes though the Parts be proportionable and well dispos'd for the performance of Actions yet unless there be something to change and excite those Parts to their design'd Operations they will act nothing So that Action proceeds neither from the innate disposition of the Parts nor from the Objects but from hence that it knows and perceives the Objects and incites the dispos'd Parts to various Operations which being but slightly consider'd by some was the reason that they understood not that the Propriety of Parts in Brutes requir'd likewise some more noble Artificer to direct that disposition and to be the Cause and Author of it and of the foresaid nobler Actions And by reason of these Operations of the Fancy in Brutes as in Mankind proceeds that more copious Influx of the Animal Spirits in Brutes and consequently their continu'd Generation of Milk XLIX Hence it appears how ill they argue who denying all Knowledge and Understanding in Brutes alledge 1. That Brutes seeing there can be no thinking Substance assign'd to 'em are depriv'd of all Sences 2. Every thinking Substance is immortal 3. There is no Sence without Conscience 4. No Conscience without the Thing thinking 5. No Thing thinking without any Rationality 6. No Rationality without Immortality L. The first is to be contradicted by every Ploughman for who will presume to deny That Beasts do excel some more some less in all the five Sences Who dares say That their Organs of Sence were assign'd 'em to no purpose by the Supream Creator or that they know not what is hurtful and what is for their Benefit and Advantage To the Second we have already answered That though such Actions cannot be perform'd without some thinking Substance yet is it not requisite that that Substance should be Immortal but something Analogous The Third and Fourth we grant to be true yet we must distinguish in the mean time between the Thing Thinking which is imperfect and mortal c. and the Thing Thinking which is immortal and perfectly rational of which the first is but a certain Analogon or slender Shadow which proves the Falshood of the Fifth when some Thinking Thing may be without perfect Rationality though as the Sixth says no
Unions of the Vessels for want of humane Birth may be conveniently demonstrated in Calves newly Calv'd and Lambs newly yean'd CHAP. XI Of the Office or Action of the Heart I. PLato Galen and several of the Stoicks assert That the Heart is the Seat of the Irascible Soul But Chrysippus Possidonius and many of the Aristotelians not only of the Irascible but Concupiscible Soul From whom Hippocrates does not very much differ while he alledges That the Soul abides in the hottest and strongest Fire and plainly affirms moreover That the Mind is seated in the Heart of Man This was also the Sentiment of Diogenes as Plutarch witnesses and of Zeno according to Laertius To which Opinion Apollodorus also subscrib'd as Tertullian testifies and which Gassendus likewise among the modern Authors endeavors to prove Nor do the Sacred Scriptures a little contribute to the confirmation of this Doctrine Where we read That God is the Searcher of the Heart That out of the Heart issue evil Thoughts That Folly Wisdom Iudgment Counsel Repentance proceed from the Heart Whence the Prophet David thus prays Psal. 119. Give me Wisdom and I will keep thy Law and observe it with my whole Heart Incline my Heart to keep thy Testimonies The Lord hates the Heart which imagines evil Thoughts Besides this they produce several Reasons 1. Because the Heart first lives and moves and last dies and being wounded the whole Structure falls 2. Because it is seated in the middle and most worthy part of the whole Body 3. Because this Bowel only makes the Blood and vital Spirit and nourishes and enlivens every Part of the Body and that the Soul abides in the Blood is apparent from the Sacred Text The Soul of the Flesh is in the Blood 4. Because the Heart being out of order the whole Body suffers with it but when other Parts are vitiated it does not necessarily die with them 5. Because the Brain to which most ascribe the Seat of the Soul depends upon the Heart and the Motion of the Brain proceeds from the Heart 6. Because a Part of the Brain may be corrupted and taken away the Life and Soul remaining but no part of the Heart all whose Wounds are mortal 7. Because although Perception Thought Imagination Memory and other principal Actions are perform'd in the Brain it does not follow that the Seat of the Soul is in the Instrument by which those Actions are perform'd The Workman by the Clock and Dyal which he makes shews the whole City what time of the Day it is and numbers the Hours by the striking the Bell yet hence it does not follow that he himself abides or has his fix'd residence in the Clock 't is sufficient he affords the Clock what is requisite for the performance of the Action though he live in another place Thus the Soul may operate indeed in the Brain as in the Instrument but may have its Seat nevertheless in the Heart Hence Picolomini acutely alledges That the Soul is ty'd to us upon a double Accompt 1. By Nature and so abides absolutely in the Heart 2. By Operation as it sends Faculties to the Instruments by means of the Spirits discharg'd out of the Heart by the operation of which Faculties the Presence of the Soul is discern'd In the same manner Avicen will have the Soul with its Faculties abide in the Heart as in the first Root but that it gives its Light to all the Members That is to say that the Heart is the beginning of the Animal Faculties but makes use of the Brain as the Instrument of Feeling so that the Animal Faculty is radically in the Heart but by way of Manifestation in the Brain And these and some others like these are the Authorities and Reasons wherewith some going about to describe the Office of the Heart endeavour to defend their opinion which Cartesius nevertheless most strenuously opposes But they seem to be all out of the way who going about to describe the Office of the Heart presently fall a quarrelling about the Seat of the Rational Soul and prosecute it with that heat as if the whole Question depended upon that Hinge But we are going about to examine the Office of the Mortal Heart not the Seat of the Immortal Soul II. Now the Chief and Primary Action of the Heart in the whole Body is to make Blood and by Pulsation to distribute it through the Arteries to all the Parts that all may be nourished thereby This Office of Sanguification the most ancient Philosophers always ascrib'd to the Heart Thus Hippocrates calls the Heart the Fountain of Blood Plato in his Timaeus asserts the Heart to be the Fountain of Blood flowing with a kind of violence Aristotle asserts the Heart to be the beginning of the Veins and to have the chief power of procreating Blood But after them came Galen the Introducer of a new Opinion who excuses the Heart from the Function of Sanguification and ascribes it sometimes to the Liver sometimes to the Substance of the Veins and sometimes to both Vesalius Iacobus de Partibus Columbus Picolomini Carpus Bauhinus Ioubertus and several others imitate Galen with great Applause especially those who are meer Followers of the Flock that goes before going not where they are to go but where the Galenists go and had rather admire Galen's Authority than enquire any farther into the Truth But in this our Age the ancient Truth that lay long wrapt up in thick Clouds again broke forth out of Darkness into Light For ever since the Knowledge of Circulation has illustrated the whole Body of Physick it has been certainly found out That the Office of Circulation agrees with the Heart alone and that therein only this General Nutriment is made by which all the Parts of the whole Body are to be nourish'd and for that reason that there is a perpetual Pulse allow'd it on purpose to disperse that Nourishment and communicate it to all the Parts This Sanguifying Duty the most Famous Philosophers at this day allow the Heart so that there are very few left that uphold the Galenic Sentence of the Liver any longer Though Swammerdam has promis'd to restore the Liver to its former Dignity but upon what Grounds and with what Applause we longingly expect III. But Glisson revolts from both Opinions as well the Ancient one concerning the Heart as the Galenic Opinion concerning the Liver Who finding that the Seed being conceiv'd and alter'd by the Heat of the Womb the Vital Spirit that lay asleep is rais'd up from power to act and that then that Vital Spirit moves the Vital Juice in which it abides every where and also makes Channels and Passages for it self through the Seminal Matter moreover that Sanguineous Rudiments appear before the Heart Liver or other Bowels can be manifestly seen from all these things he concludes That the Blood is not generated and mov'd in the Heart but that the Heart and Blood are generated by
Vertebrae But in regard they are neither sensible of feeling nor are mov'd I think it may be question'd whether they have any remarkable and conspicuous Nerves or no Or whether they receive any at all or at least only such as are hardly visible Perhaps the Lymphatic Vessels which proceed from 'em deceiv'd Wharton who took those for Nerves Some there are who believe that these Kernels not only moisten the Gullet without but also withinside to facilitate the swallowing of Nourishment But in regard that outward Irrigation is no way necessary and for that there is no Passage extended from the Kernels toward the outward Concavity of the Gullet it is apparent that that can be none of their Use but that they rather collect the Lymphatic Liquor or suck it from the neighbouring Parts and mix it with the Chylus through the Lymphatic Channels These Kernels sometimes swell to that degree by reason of the Afflux of Humors that they compress and streighten the Gullet overmuch and so obstruct the Passage of the Nourishment and starve the Patient to Death of which we have met with three or four Examples in our Practice VI. The Gullet is mov'd with three Pair of Muscles and a peculiar Sphincter The first Pair which is call'd Cephalopharingaeâ—…m dismiss'd from the Confines of the Head and Neck is expanded with a large Fold of Fibres into the Tunicle of the Gullet by raising it upward streightens the Jaws in swallowing The second Pair call'd Sphaenophariâ—… arising from the Cavity of the Inner Wing of the Wedge-like Bone and being obliquely extended into the Sides of the Palat and Gullet dilates the Gullet To this there are some who add another Pair inserted into the Lateral and Hinder Part of the Jaws and Gullet by drawing which Part downward they dilate the Cavity of the Jaws and Gullet The third Pair call'd Stylopharingaeum arising from an Appendix of the Pencil-fashion'd Bone and reaching the Sides of the Gullet dilates it with the first Pair The Sphincter of the Gullet call'd also the Oesophagâ—…an-Muscle springing from both Gristles of the Wedge-like Bone encompasses the Gullet like a Sphincter and by streightning it thrusts the Meat downward VII The Use of the Gullet is to swallow the Meat taken in at the Mouth which is perform'd by the Fibres of the Gullet and chiefly by the Oesophagus Galen numbers this among the Natural Actions but in regard that Swallowing is an Arbitrary Action and perform'd by the Instruments serving to voluntary Motion that is to say the Muscles it seems rather to be reckon'd among the Animal Motions And tho' it serve to a Natural Use or Action which is Nourishment however it is no less an Animal Action than Respiration which is assistant to Nourishment yet is an Animal Action CHAP. XVII Of the Neck THE Uppermost Appendix of the Middle Venter is the Neck call'd Collum à Colendo to be worshipped because it usually is most adorn'd Which Etymology no way pleases Us in regard the Neck was long before the Use of Jewels and other Ornaments and therefore we rather derive it from Collis as rising like a Hill above the Shoulders This Neck do we as most Anatomists do reckon among the Parts of the Breast as well by reason of the Vertebrae's with the rest of the Vertebrae's of the Back as by reason of their common Use in regard they afford a common Passage with the rest to the Marrow of the Brain Though Spigelius thinks that Office rather ought to be attributed to the Head Upon this Part the Head is set as upon a more eminent Hill that from thence as from a Watch-Tower it may take a Prospect every way of what is to be desir'd what avoyded and be mov'd about with an easie Motion I. The hinder Part of it though it be generally comprehended under the Name of Collum yet is more particularly call'd Cervix The Neck consists of the common Coverings of the whole Body as also of Arteries Veins Nerves seven Vertebrae's and eight Muscles of which more hereafter II. The hinder Part of the Neck descending is properly call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being seated above the Shoulders III. Underneath this stand the Shoulders by the Greeks call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being those Parts which are seated at the Sides of the Neck which give a beginning to the whole Arm and are constituted by that Eminency which the Head of the Arm makes when it is joyn'd to the broad Bone of the Scapula IV. The contrary Part to this is hollow seated under the Ioynt of the Arm by the Greeks call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Latins Axilla and for shortness sake Ala. V. Hippocrates makes a Judgment of the strength of a Man by the Thickness or Slenderness of his Neck and says that a slender Neck betokens Imbecillity and a thick Neck Strength Not without Reason in regard that such as are the Vertebrae's of the Neck such are generally the Vertebrae's of the Breast the Loyns and the Os Sacrum nay such indeed are all the rest of the Bones and other Parts answering the Bigness of the Bones as the Arteries Nerves Veins Ligaments c. If therefore the Neck be slender and weak all the other Parts of the whole Body answerable to it of necessity must be proportionably such but if thick and strong the rest of the corresponding Parts of the Body must be proportionably large and strong unless some Monstrosity of the Neck occasion an Exception to the General Rule The End of the Second Book THE THIRD BOOK OF ANATOMY TREATING Of the UPPER BELLY or HEAD CHAP. I. Of the Head in General ORder and Method now requires that we should survey the Upper Region of the Body and enter the Royal Palace of Minerva and that Superior Mansion of Hers garrison'd with all her Lifeguard where is the Seat of that most Noble Bowel to which the Supream Architect subjected the Government of the whole Body This uppermost Region or uppermost Venter is the Head wherein is contain'd the Chief Organ of the most Noble Functions of the Soul I. It is call'd Caput à capiendo from containing either because it contains the Brain which is the most Noble Bowel or else because the Sences and Animal Actions derive their Beginning from it By the Greeks it is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as much as to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Shell because perhaps the Skull encloses the Noble Bowel like a Shell whence it is call'd by the French La Teste II. It is seated in the uppermost and most eminent Part of the Body which the Platonics think was therefore done because there was a necessity and no more than what was just that the Understanding which is the Queen of all the Faculties should be uppermost exalted But the Galenics
call'd the Hairy part therefore is the Skin much thicker there than in other Parts of the Body from whence they give forth less numerous and smaller VI. The Hair is divided into Hair brought forth with the Body and growing afterward The Hair with which we are born is the Hair of the Head the Eye-lids and Eye-brows The other Hair is that which afterwards appears upon the Face Privities Breast under the Arm-pits in the Nostrils Ears Arse-hole Thighs Legs and other Parts of the Body VII The Hair is also a Heterogeneous Body though it seems Homogeneous as appears from hence that they live and are nourish'd For there is no Life in any Body which is homogeneous and simple and the Concoction and Preparation of Nourishment Separation of useful from unuseful as also Apposition and Assimilation are necessarily perform'd by the diversity of the smaller Particles And therefore though Aquapendens and several others affirm this Part to be a Similar Part yet that is only to be understood in the Gross not that they are really Homogeneous and Similar but seem to be so to the Sight VIII The Form of the Hair is two-fold the one Essential and the other Accidental The Essential Part is that which gives the Hair its Being and Life which is its Soul And because this Form is to us unknown and the Presence of it only perceptible to the Mind nor can well be express'd in Words We with other Physicians who take their Temper from whence all their Action proceeds for the Form of the Parts will likewise agree That their Essential Form is their cold and dry Temper The Accidental Form of the Hairs is their Figures and Shape whatever it be long crooked straight curl'd round square c. For the Hairs at first Sight seem solid and exactly round yet upon a more narrow Inspection you shall observe other things Spigelius says they are square and Riolanus that they are hollow We also affirm that the Hairs are porous and that some are square others triangular and other round For all these Figures manifestly appear if the Hairs being cut small and short and well view'd with a Microscope but the Pores are chiefly extended according to their Length as you may observe much better in the Bristles of a Hog IX The Efficient Cause of Hair is the same which perfects the Generation of other Bodies that is a convenient Heat acting upon apt Matter and disposing it to an Animation proper for Hair And though in dead Bodies in which the Hair will grow for some time there seems no Heat to remain yet there is such a Heat and so much as is sufficient to promote the Generation of Hair there being no extraordinary Heat requir'd for that work Hence the Heat forms animates and pushes forth Hair out of fit Matter which being thrust forth by the ambient Cold become much drier and harder And hence those Hairs that come into the World with us because they have remain'd long in a moist place in New-born Infants are very soft and moist but the Child being born they are soon dry'd by the Air. X. Concerning the first Original of Hair there is some Dispute among the Philosophers while some believe 'em form'd in the first Delineation of the Parts out of the Seed others will not have 'em to proceed originally from the Seed The former produce several Arguments to confirm their Opinion and do not believe there can be any Question made but that the Hair which comes into the World with us is form'd out of the Terrestrial Part of the Seed in regard that the Matter of Hair is chiefly Analogous to the Seed and hence the Substance of the Hair born into the World as also the Form and Colour of it resembles the Substance Form and Colour of both Parents and for that Men abounding with Seed are more hairy whereas either through much Use of Venery or defect of Seed they fall off as in old Age. As to the Hairs that grow after the Birth they say that it grows from the same Seminal Matter sticking in the Parts which are to be cover'd and not yet stirr'd up into Act but afterwards in its own due time swelling through Heat The latter sort much more to the purpose maintain That the Hair is not form'd in the first Formation out of the Seed with the rest of the Parts but afterwards when the Parts are already delineated and somewhat grown that in some of those Parts more proper and more fit for this purpose that same peculiar Matter fit for the generation of Hair increases by the Nourishment which is brought and at length out of that Matter agitated by the Heat the Hair is form'd and stirr'd up being endu'd with a particular Soul and Life distinct from the rest of the Parts because they are not stirr'd up and endu'd with Life with the rest of the Parts out of the same Seed but apart out of other Matter afterwards generated Now that they live by virtue of another peculiar Vegetable Soul that has no Communion with the other animated Parts of the Body is apparent from hence for that they do live only while a man is alive but after his Decease are nourish'd and encreas'd after the same manner as Polypody-Moss c. grow upon old Trees both before and after the Tree dies because they have each a proper Soul distinct from the Form and Soul of the Tree out of which and wherein they grow XI There is great Diversity of Hair which though it be to be observ'd in all the Hairs of the Body yet is chiefly observable in the Hairs of the Head for they differ First in Plenty Hence some have very thin and small Heads of Hair others are very hairy upon their Heads from their Births or else after they are born and that by reason of the great store or scarcity of the Matter convenient which produces the Hair But as for those who afterwards become bald that befals 'em not only from the small Quantity but from the Defect as in Leprous Persons or the unaptness of the Matter or the closeness of the Pores out of which they grow Wonderful was the vast Quantity of Absolon's Hair of whom the Scripture says That when he shav'd his Head which was but once a year the Hair of his Head which he cut off weigh'd two hundred Shekels every She kel according to the publick weight of the Iews weighing an Ounce Secondly In Thickness Hence some Heads of Hair are thicker others thinner by reason of the various bigness of the Pores through which they pass or the Redundancy or Plenty of Matter Thirdly In Length For some Hair grows shorter other Hair grows longer and generally Womens Hair grows longer than Mens by reason of the Redundancy of Matter and the Wideness and Narrowness of the Pores For if the Pores are over-wide the Hair falls off before it grows to any Length but if straighter then
of Mind and Strength of Body Durae per brachia Setae Promittunt atrocem Animunt After all these things that there may be nothing wanting in reference to the Discourse of Hair let us enquire what is the Matter out of which Hair is generated seeing that we have already shew'd that it is not generated out of the Seed at the first Formation of the Birth XV. This Matter then is a certain thick terrestrial viscid Iuice bred out of the Blood or some other Humor and prepar'd after a Specific manner That the Matter is thick and terrestrial appears from hence that is to say from the hardness the viscousness from the firmness and flexibleness of the Hair XVI Out of this Matter or out of this Iuice in the Parts adapted for the generation and fixing of the Hair is the Hair generated animated and shot forth by the agitated Heat and afterwards nourish'd after the same manner For this Juice is attracted by the Roots of the Body and carry'd through the Pores to the Extremities so nourishes the Hair and passes into its Substance as we may observe in the Nourishment of Plants This Juice I say is concocted and prepar'd in certain Parts out of which the Hair shoots and that at what time those Parts are become fit for the Preparation of this sort of Matter which Aptitude when some Parts obtain sooner others later hence it comes to pass that the Hair grows sooner in some Parts as upon the Head Eye-lids and Eye-brows in others later as upon the Chin the Privities the Breast the Arm-pits c. XVII Riolanus's Judgment is other wise concerning this Matter who thinks this Juice is not prepar'd in the Parts which are to be cover'd but endeavors to prove that the Matter of the Hair is afforded only from the Kernels Besides the Aptitude of the Skin says he there is requir'd a certain Glandulous Substance as well to moisten the Skin and to afford Matter for the Generation and Nourishment of the Hair wherefore where the Parts are slimy and moist there are also Kernels for proof of which we find that where there are Kernels there is also Hair The Hair therefore taking this Opportunity from the Kernels grows and increases collecting that which abounds and â—…lows into the Extremities but where the Body is dry and no Glandules are there grows no Hair Moreover there are Kernels on both sides the Ears near the Iugular Veins of the Neck and Hair also in the same Place Also under the Arm-pits on both sides there are Kernels and Hair But the Brain is bigger than all the rest of the Glandules and therefore there is more Hair upon the Head But though this be a specious Argument of Riolanus as propounded according to the Opinion of Hippocrates yet it rests upon no solid Foundation Rather the contrary will follow should we thus argue Where there are no Glandules there is no Hair which that it is false many Proofs declare For there are no manifest Glandules under the Skin of the Legs which are nevertheless very hairy in most Men. Moreover in Men they abound upon the Chin and Lips where there are no Kernels of any moment to be found And therefore Riolanus vainly endeavors to force his Matter from remote Kernels near the Ears and others under the Tongue to create Hair upon the Lips and Chin. Moreover Hair has been observ'd to grow in the Heart where never any Glandules were yet known to be It has also been found that Hair has grown upon dry'd Carkasses for the Generation of which the dry'd up Kernels can afford no Matter most certainly Moreover if the Kernels afforded that slimy Matter for Hair and Riolanus's Rule were true Where there are Kernels there is also Hair why does not Hair grow in the same Parts of Women seeing they have as many Kernels as Men Why have they no hair upon their Chins and Lips like Men Why are not their Breasts hairy also like Men's seeing their Breasts are full of such large Kernels so that by that Reason they ought to have the most Hair in those Places In the last place Riolanus does very ill to number the Brain among the Glandules as we shall shew in the Fifth Chapter following XVIII But Galen and with him many other Physicians and Philosophers dissent from our Opinion first propounded and the Doctrine of Riolanus who believe and teach That the Matter out of which Hair grows and is generated is no peculiar Iuice to that end specifically prepar'd in the Parts to be cover'd or supply'd from the Glandules as Riolanus asserts but that it is an Excrement of the third Concoction moist fuliginous thick and terrestrial rais'd from the Fat which lies under the Skin or from some slimy and viscous Humor that lies in like manner under the Skin and sticks to it which being apply'd to the Roots of the Hair shoots forth by degrees the preceding Particles and causes 'em to grow long From which Opinion of his they thus conclude That no Nutritive Matter passes through the Hair it self to its Extremities but that their Growth is caus'd by the said Apposition to the Roots which is the Reason that they do not grow all of an equal dimension Secondly That the Hair is not to be numbred among the Parts of the Body partly because it is not nourish'd with alimentary Juice but by fuliginous Vapors partly because they have not a Soul and Life common to the rest of the Parts And hence the Hair being cut or pull'd up by the Roots a man is not deem'd to be depriv'd of any Part of his Body and for that they live after a Man is dead and depriv'd of his Soul or at least for some time XIX But this Opinion is oppos'd by others with many strong Arguments 1. If the Hair were generated out of any such fuliginous Vapour then in sane Bodies full of good and wholsom Humors where there is least of this sort of Excrement there would little Hair grow in Bodies full of peccant Humors a great deal of Hair Whereas Experience teaches us that the Hair grows best in soundest Bodies and sullest of good Juice but that in Bodies full of peccant Humors it grows very thinly and falls off which causes that Disease call'd Alopecia or Falling of the Hair which is cur'd by Med'cines that evacuate peccant Humors and by good Diet that creates good Blood and consumes fuliginous Excrements 2. That the Hair is not nourish'd by any such Excrement or increas'd by its Apposition appears from hence for that the Hair being cut and consequently made obtuse at the end would remain obtuse whereas the contrary is apparent in regard the hair grows first at the Ends and becomes sharp 3. The same thing is also manifest from hence That if you pluck up the hair by the Roots you shall find many times something of Blood sticking to them out of which being concocted in the Skin
last Opinion many at this day stifly oppose and others as stifly defend Cartesius grants indeed that the Soul is joyn'd to the whole body but says that it exercises its Functions more particularly and immediately in this Glandule than in other Parts Regius will have it to be the common Sensory and that the Soul exists in that and in no other part of the Body Thus also de la Forge asserts it to be the principal Seat of the Soul and the real Organ of Imagination and common Sence and that the breeding of Stones in it is no obstruction to it in its Operations no though it be all Stone provided there be Pores wide enough for the passage of the Spirits He adds that though the Kernel should be wanting and only the void place left for the Arteries of the choroid Fold to empty themselves yet that place would be a sufficient Seat for the Soul the Imagination and common Sence Certainly with the same Reason he might have said that though the Heart were wanting yet if its place were left for the large Vessels to exonerate themselves it would be a sufficient Fountain for the support of all the vital Actions that is to say that in absence of the agent Organ the place of the Organ would suffice to perform the Actions of the Organ But for my part I must ingenuously confess that these 〈◊〉 are more subtil than Subtility it 〈◊〉 On the other side Wâ—…arton as vainly conceives that it only at tracts the excrementitious Moisture from the upper Thighs of the beginning of the Spinal Marrow And thus the Use of this Kernel is still undetermin'd XIX 5. The Choroid Fold which descending from the upper Ventricles in this middlemost is expanded thro' it with a much broader and thicker Contexture than in the former and has a Vein sometimes streight and sometimes double interwoven in the middle and running as far as the large Bay of the Scythe into which the small Arteries exonerate the remainder of the Blood which is to be carry'd to the Hollowness Now this Fold sends â—…orth into the Arch the fibrous Protuberancies the Testicles and Buttocks several small Branches like diminutive Fibers by means of which it is joyn'd to them every way and it wraps and enfolds the Pineal Glandule in such a manner that it cannot be seen unless the Fold be broken and taken off Malpigius together with Mâ—…bius believes that the Ventricles were form'd by Nature for no Use but only by Accident but how erroneous this Opinion is sufficiently appears by what has already been said For the service of the three Ventricles of the Brain is very necessary to afford a loose and ample passage to the Choroid Fold and defend it from compressure as also to receive and collect the serous and flegmatic Humors separated by the small Kernels out of the inner Substance of the Brain and especially out of the Vessels of the Fold CHAP. VII Of the Cerebel the Fourth Ventricle and the long Pith or Marrow I. IN the hinder and lowermost part of the Skull that is between the large Hollownesses of the Bone of the hinder part of the Head lies the Cerebellum by the Greeks call d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 containing the second part of the Brain as it were a little and peculiar Brain because it is much less than the Brain and being cover'd with both the Meninxes is separated from it and on both side united to the long Pith for a little space and continuous with it but in the middlemost lower Seat it is joyn'd to the Spinal Marrow upon the hinder part by the intervening of the thin Meninx and lest the Fourth Ventricle should gape there it is wrapt about with the thin Meninx expanded as far as the Buttocks II. The Form of it is somewhat broad and something flat upon both the Lateral parts representing the Figure of a broader sort of Globe III. The Bulk of it is much bigger in Men than in Brutes IV. The Substance of it differs not much from the Substance of the Brain only that it seems not to be so soft but much firmer V. It is divided into innumerable small thin Plates representing the Leaves and Boughs of Trees and cloath'd with the thin Membrane interwoven with several Capillary Branches of the cervical Arteries and of which the inward and middle part are of a white the external Compass of a darker Colour Through those little Arteries the Blood flows to it in great quantity the remaining part of which after nourishment runs into the lateral Hollownesses VI. It has two Processes call'd the Worm-like Processes which consist of many transverse and as it were twisted Particles joyn'd together with a thin Membrane like Worms that lie in rotten Wood. Of these the foremost prominent into the fourth Ventricle adjoyns to the Buttocks and Stones the hindermost is not altogether so prominent but vanishes with a point into the Substance of the Cerebel Some also think that these Processes are distended and contracted in the elevation and compression of the Cerebel VII About the hinder part of the Trunk of the long Marrow is to be seen Varolius's Bridge which consists of two and sometimes three gibbous Processes on both sides protuberating from the Cerebel to the Circumference of the fourth Ventricle of which they that are seated near the Worm-like Process are larger the rest lesser VIII The Cerebel has no Cavities but only a wide Hollowness in the middle yet not very deep which by some is call'd the Cistern and this constitutes the higher part of the fourth Ventricle The Substance of the Cerebel differs little or nothing from that of the Brain and is cloath'd in the same manner with Membranes and a Shell and also has deep Windings and Meanders overcast with the thin Meninx to the lowest Depths and furnish'd with Net-work Folds of small Arteries and Veins whence the Office and Use of the Brain and Cerebel is thought to be the same Willis therefore observing no certainty in ascribing this Office to the Cerebel has found out another which he thinks to be more true and genuine And thus he â—…ays that the Cerebel which he takes to be a peculiar Bowel is a peculiar Fountain and Magazine of certain Animal Spirits design'd for peculiar Uses and distinct from the Brain The Office of the Brain he assigns to be to afford and supply those Animal Spirits wherewith the Imagination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Discourse and other supream 〈◊〉 of the Animal Function are perform'd and by which all the voluntary Motions are brought to pass But that the Duty of the Cerebel seems to be to procreate Animal Spirits apart and different from those generated in the Brain and to send them to some particular Nerves by which unvoluntary Actions as Pulsation of the Heart Protrusion of the Chylus Concoction of the Nourishment and many others which unknown to us and
infus'd by God and governing all the Animal Actions of the whole Body and yet be able to perceive all those things which are done in the extream parts in the least space of a moment even in the very point of time they are acted Moreover they do not believe the Seat of the Rational Soul to be so small in Man and yet in Brutes which are destitute of that Soul to be three times as big Furthermore they cannot apprehend why the Seat of the Soul should not be ascrib'd as well to the Heart as to the Brain seeing that all the Motions of the Animal Spirits and the Brain it self proceed from the Heart which when it ceases to beat all the Animal Actions fail as it happens in a Syncope and in Wounds of the Ventricles of the Heart Concerning this Matter in our Age sharp and furious have been the Contests on both sides as if they were contending for the safety of their Country and daily most terrible Paper-Disputes arise eager indeed and vehement but vain and frivolous by which the Minds of young People are more disturb'd than taught But setting aside these unprofitable Contests let us enquire into the more sensible Action of the Brain it self III. Aristotle teaches us that the Office of the Brain is to temper the heat of the Heart Which Opinion though most reject Spigelius nevertheless endeavors to assert it for Rational Galen attributes to the Brain the Office of generating and making Animal Spirits With whom most of the Modern Philosophers agree For this is most certain that the Animal Actions are not at the first hand perform'd by the Brain it self but by the Animal Spirits made in the Brain by means of which the Soul in well dispos'd Organs executes its Actions and so the Brain is the Instrument which generates those Spirits These Spirits Zabarel Argenterius Helmont Deusingius and some others as well Physitians as Philosophers confound with the vital Spirits and affirm that they differ from them not in Specie but only in certain Accidents and therefore it is that Spigelius says Not that there is here a certain mutation of the vital Spirits which destroys their whole nature but only a certain alteration of the Temperament Eâ—…t agrees with Spigelius and supports his Opinion with these three Arguments 1. The Birth both feels and is mov'd in the Womb without the aid of any Animal Spirit in regard that no Maternal Nerve runs to the Birth 2. A most subtil Spirit cannot be made in a cold Brain and full of mucous Filth for Cold stupifies the Spiriâ—…s and hinders their Actions 3. The Nerves themselves derive their Life and Heaâ—… from the Arteries which are conspicuously diffus'd through them To these Arguments others add one more that the most subtil Spirits never descend to the lower parts but always tend upwards and exhale and hence although there should be allow'd any Animal Spirits to be so subtil they would never descend into the Nerves but would always fly upwards through the Pores But though these things seem specious enough at a distance yet they neither prove nor confirm the said Sentence To the First I answer That the Birth in the Womb is neither mov'd with an Animal Motion nor feels until the first delineaments of the Brains and Nerves are arriv'd and increas'd to such a Bulk Firmness and Perfection that the Brain may be able to generate Animal Spirits sufficient and that those Spirits may be conveniently convey'd to the sensitive and moving parts and because it requires some Months to attain that perfection therefore the Birth does not move it self until the Woman have gone out half her time that is about the fourth Month and a half For what Spirits are generated before that time are very few and weak and the rest of the Parts themselves of the Body unapt for Motion or Sence Nor does the Motion of the Birth proceed nor is it perform'd by the Spirits or Maternal Nerves running to it of which there are none that enter the Birth but by the Spirits and Nerves generated in it self To the Second I say that there is no considerable Magnitude requir'd for the making of Animal Spirits but rather a Mediocrity of Heat such as is sufficient in the Brain though it be much less than in the other parts And there is a necessity for that lesser Heat which they call Cold to asswage the Heat of the Arterious Blood and in some measure to thicken its Volatile sulphurous Spirits that so the Animal Spirit may separate it self more pure from the salt Particles and may flow into the Nerves no longer beset with superfluity of viscous Vapors Moreover it is to be understood that although the Brain be said to be colder than other parts yet that it is not absolutely cold only that the Temper of it is less hot than of many other parts and that the proper confirmation of it is such as is most fit for the generation of Spirits Lastly the natural Temper of the Brain inclining to Cold is not such as stupifies the Spirits nor renders them unapâ—… to perform their Actions in the Parts but its preternatural cold Temper excluding the Blood and natural Heat by a too close constriction of the Pores is the cause that for want of convenient Matter few Spirits are generated therein and that those already generated with great difficulty and in small quantity flow through the streightned Pores and Nerves Which is the Reason that then the Actions fail by degrees not because the Actions are stupify'd as is vulgarly believ'd but because very few are generated flow into the parts For the Spirits endure no Stupefaction for Drowsiness is nothing else but a rest of the Actions in the Sensory Organs by reason of the scarcity of the Animal Spirits To the Third I answer that although the Brain and Nerves are nourish'd with Arterious Blood it does not thence follow that the Animal Spirits generated in the Brain are nothing different from the Blood and Vital Spirits generated in the Heart and carry'd through the Arteries for the nourishment of the Parts for this is as much as if a man should say The Stomach is nourish'd by the Arterious Blood generated out of the Chylus therefore the Chylus concocted therein is nothing different from the Blood Or thus The Heart changes the Chylus into Blood therefore the Blood which is generated therein is nothing different from the Chylus Or thus The Bread is turn'd into Chylus and the Chylus into Blood therefore the bread differs nothing either from the Chylus or the Blood To the Last I say That the Animal Spirits would easily exhale out of the Brain and Pith unless they were there with-held in their cool Work-house which hinders their sudden Exhalation and would flow into the Nerves which are of a firmer Substance and thus all Chymical Spirits are best kept close in cool Vessels and hinder'd from exhaling Moreover that they would not descend
such an Atrophy caus'd by the ill temper of the Brain and Spirits has been often cur'd by Remedies apply'd to the Head alone by which the Animal Spirits being restor'd to their former Sanity Nutrition has had its usual Course 8. Because upon the cutting of any Nerve that Part to which the Nerve was carry'd shall consume and perish for want of Animal Spirits Of which Riolanus gives us an elegant Example Nicephorus Gregorius saith he saw a young Boy once that being shot with an Arrow into the Neck the Arrow had cut the Nerve upon which the contrary Foot was seiz'd with a Numness and the Disease remain'd incurable and though the other Foot grew as the Boy grew the other Leg retain'd its first exility and Shortness hanging loose and useless Upon which many that understood not the Causes and Reasons of things were strangely amaz'd how it came to pass that the Hand which was much nearer the Wound was altogether insensible of the Hart when the Foot so far distant was so deeply affected with it But by reason Anatomy was not so well understood in that Age the cause of that Accident was not so well discern'd by the Physicians of that time which was certainly this because the Arrow had not struck the Nerve after its separation from the Pith and its starting out through the Side-holes of the Spiny Fistula for there is no Nerve that slides through the Vertebers of the Neck which descends to the Thigh and Foot but penetrating within the Spiny Fistula had cut the Nervy Strings in the Pith it self which descends to the Loins and the holy Bone and thence to the Foot and for that reason the influx of Spirits into the Foot failing the Foot dry'd up and ceas'd its growth So that which way soever we consider the Matter it will appear that the Animal Spirits necessarily concur to the Office of Nutrition And moreover that in the Spleen they separate the Matter of Ferment out of the arterious Blood necessary for the preparation of the Blood and the Chylus These things Glisson and Wharton seem in some measure to have smelt out and Lambert Velâ—…hussus treading their Footsteps Only in this they were deceiv'd that besides the Animal Spirits they thought there flow'd through the Nerves some other sort of Nutritive Juice which of it self nourish'd the Spermatic Parts Which Error proceeded from that whitish Juice resembling the White of an Egg which when the Nerves are hurt is often gather'd together in the Nerves or about them vulgarly call'd Aqua Articularis Which Humor however doesnot distil from the Nerves when hurt for such a slimy Juice could never pass through the invisible Pores but is a Humor that usually setâ—…les about the Joints to render them 〈◊〉 and slippery which upon a too copious mixture with the Animal Spirits flowing out of the endamag'd Nerves grows thick and coagulated many times to the Consistence of the White of an Egg. Which loss of Spirits causes a debility and Atrophy in the Part. I thought good to insert this paradoxical Opinion of mine into these Anatomical Exercises in few words upon which others may comment more at large because that from this foundation the Use and Nature of many other parts may be gather'd There remain two things more to be unfolded First Whether the Animal Spirits are the next Instrument of the Soul concerning which thing Plempius accurately discourses l. 2. Fund Med. sect 4. c. 1. The next How these Spirits being generated in the Brain and flowing with a continual and natural Motion to perfect the Nourishment of the parts are mov'd by the Mind by another designing Motion and are sent sometimes in a larger sometimes in a lesser proportion to sundry parts But these things which chiefly concern the Actions of the Soul seem not to be the proper Subject of our Discourse wherein we have design'd to write not of the Soul but only of the Body of Man and therefore as for those that are covetous of Satisfaction in this particular I think fit to send them to the Philosophers who have on purpose set forth whole Treatises of the Soul and its Actions which however I advise to be read with great Judgment since not a few of them have feign'd many and wonderful idle Dreams in that particular CHAP. XII Of the Face IN the foregoing Chapters we have endeavour'd to display what is to be found in the Hairy Part of the Head now we come to the smooth Part which is call'd the Countenance or Vultus a Voluntatis judicio from the Iudgment of the Will because it discovers the Will It is also call'd Facies by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it distinguishes Men from Brutes and shews that there is a Celestial Spirit contain'd in them For if we more seriously consider the structure of the Face its singular Beauty and Splendor we cannot but discern something that is wonderful and divine therein Whence Aristotle very well observes that the whole man is comprehended in his Face as in the Compendium of a little Picture For the Wisdom of the supream Architect more than sufficiently appears in the several parts of human Body yet both the Beauty of the Face alone and its wonderful agreement with the Soul draws the Elegancy and Dignity of all the rest of the Parts as it were into a Compendium and seems to shew therein the Affections of all the rest of the Parts as in a Looking-glass For from thence we gather not only the Marks and Symptoms of Health Diseases and approaching Death but also make shrewd Conjectures of the Ingenuity Dispositions and Manners of Men. For as in the Cheeks Bashfulness and Terror in the Eyes Anger Joy Sadness Hatred and chiefly Love display themselves in the Forehead Gravity and Humility in the Eye-brows Pride in the Chin Majesty so by the Nose Sagacity or Stupidity by the Motion of the Face Wisdom or Folly Honesty or Knavery Civility or Rusticity Reverence or Contempt good or ill Will by the Colour we discover the Temperaments of the whole Body Moreover by the Face we distinguish of Sex Age Life and Birth Therefore it is the most certain Image of the Mind and a clear Mirror reflecting back those things which lie conceal'd wherein both the external and internal Sences discover themselves and all the Motions and Perturbations of the internal Faculties are display'd I. The Face consists of Parts containing and Parts contain'd The containing Parts are common or proper The common are the Cuticle the Skin which is here very thin the Fat of which there is none either in the Eye-brows or Nose and very little in the Lips and Region of the Chaps where it is so interwoven with Muscles that it cannot be separated from the Parts annext to it The Fleshy Pannicle which below the Eyes is so thin that Riolanus thought it to be altogether wanting in that Part. In the Forehead it is much more fleshy and sticks so
another or with one or more Muscles 9. In respect of their Use some bending others stretching forth drawing to drawing from lifting up pulling down and some wheeling XII The Use of the Muscles is to contribute to voluntary Motion Which is performed by these Instruments alone for no Part moves with that motion which is not a Muscle it self or mov'd by a Muscle And this motion is call'd Animal or Voluntary being perform'd at the will of the Creature Here Picolhomini and some others start a Question Whether the motion of the Muscles can be said to be Voluntary Since it is common to Beasts which have no Reason and consequently no Will and therefore believe Spontaneous to be more proper Nor can it be called Voluntary as being performed in the Womb by the Birth without Will as also when it sucks before it knows what the Breast or Milk is also the Pulmonary Muscles move the Breast when Men are asleep and consequently cannot be said to Will To the first I answer that there is a sort of Will in Brutes arising from something analogous to the Rational Soul and proceeding from Natural Appetite and therefore they may be said to have a voluntary Motion As to the Motion of the Birth and Breathing of those that are asleep I say that Animal Motion is not always directed by the Will but it is sufficient in Persons healthy a sleep or waking that it be performed according to the Will Moreover the Will is twofold either by Election or by Instinct as in Men sleeping or the Birth in the Womb. Galen upon this Subject writes that of those things which are mov'd by voluntary Motion some are free others are serviceable to the several Affections of the Body And that every Creature knows to what Uses the Faculties of his Soul are ordained without an Instructor Therefore the Motion of the Muscles is Voluntary and not Spontaneous in regard that Spontaneous Motion such as that of the Heart is truly Natural as not depending upon the Will of the Creature Seeing then the Motion of the Muscle is an Animal Action and that the Muscle it self is the Instrument of Voluntary Motion it is a certain Rule that where-ever there is a Muscle there in the same part may be Action and that what part cannot be moved at pleasure that is neither a Muscle nor mov'd by a Muscle though the Structure of it may seem to resemble that of a Muscle Therefore the Heart is no Muscle nor moved by a Muscle On the contrary Stenonis affirms that there are several Muscles of the Larynx Tongue and Back which are never mov'd at the Will of the Mind Though it is never to be prov'd that there is any of them but what may be mov'd at pleasure and to confirm his Opinion he maintains the Heart to be a Muscle XIV Whatever Part says he neither requires any Part necessary for a Muscle nor possesses any Part deny'd to a Muscle yet in Structure is like a Muscle cannot but deserve the Name of a Muscle though it be not subject to the Power of the Will But the Heart c. Which way of Arguing were it allowable I might argue thus Whatever Part neither requires any part necessary for the Stomach nor possesses any part deny'd the Stomach yet in Structure and Composition is like the Stomach cannot but deserve the Name of the Stomach though it do not concoct the Nourishment but all these things requisite are found in the Urinary Bladder Figure Shape Substance Arteries Veins Nerves c. therefore the Urinary Bladder deserves the Name of the Stomach Then says Stenonis nor possesses any part deny'd to a Muscle where as 't is obvious that there are in the Heart two little Ears two wide Ventricles and eleven large Valves the like to which were never seen in any Muscle So that the Heart possessing many Parts deny'd to a Muscle the Structure of it cannot be like to that of a Muscle Then the Action of the Heart is to make Blood which no Muscle in the whole Body can pretend to do If he draws his Argument from the Contraction of the Fibers in the Motion of the Pulse which is a voluntary Motion and hence we prove the Heart to be a Muscle he may as well prove the Ventricle to be a Muscle which offended by corroding things contracts it self by the Help of the Muscles to expel the offending Matter by Vomit or Hickup or the Gall-bladder which does the same when offended with boiling Choler or the Womb contracting it self for the Expulsion of the Birth Nay the very Membranes of the Brain which in Sneezing contract themselves would come to be Muscles which being all Absurdities prove the Certainty of our Axiom before mentioned XV. There is but one Action of the Muscle which is to draw which is performed by the Animal Spirits determined into the Muscle and flowing into the Fiber which causes the swelling Muscle to contract it self according to its Length For so the Tendon is drawn toward the Head which Determination and copious Influx of the Spirits so long as iâ—… lasts so long the Muscle remains contracted While this Muscle is contracted the opposite Muscle relaxes because the Spirits before determined into that flow into another which causes it to grow languid so that the Swelling and Contraction ceases because the Alteration of the Determination of the Animal Spirits may happen in a moment though how it is done we cannot so well explain XVI But this Relaxation of the Muscle is no Action but a ceasing from Action and therefore they are in an Error who think it so to be Which Galen seems to assert in one Place though in another he says that Contraction is more proper to the Body of the Muscle then Extension and so he seems to make Relaxation a kind of secundary Action But if we rightly consider it it is no Action either primary or secundary but only a Motion by Accident XVII Another Question is Whether there be any Action in the Tonic Motion when the Muscles being every way contracted together the Parts to be mov'd are never bent but are at rest nor do the Muscles themselves seem to be moved I answer there is a manifest Motion in that case for the Muscles act every way with equal Striâ—…e and that which is thought to be the motionless rest of any Part is caused by the Opposite Muscles acting together at the same time and at the same time drawing every way the Part to be mov'd XVIII Riolanus seems to make some Difference between Contraction and Tension and this he calls the Conservation of the Thing contracted But in regard this Tension is nothing else but the Continuation of Contraction it cannot be separated from Contraction But says Riolanus many things are extended which are not contracted As the Yard is extended by a distensive Faculty but then it is not contracted like a Muscle Worms are