signes times or seasons dayes and years Moreover I know that in the Sea and deep Lakes there is their motive force whereby they suffer a raging heat without windes whereby I say our Ocean is rowled six houres and else-where six constant months with one onely flowing Lastly I know that the Earth is at rest nor that it hath a motive force actively proper to it self Therefore I believe that the Earth doth quake and fear as oft as the Angel of the Lord doth smite it Behold a great Earth-quake was made for the Angel of the Lord descended from Heaven Mat. 28. The word For among the Hebrewes doth contain a cause as if he should say Because For this is the onely cause of an Earth-quake whereby all things do without resistance equally tremble together as it were a light Reed In the Revelations the third part of Mortalls Trees and Fishes perished at the very time wherein the Angel powred forth his Viall For abstracted spirits do work by the divine Power and nothing can resist them Evill spirits also as oft as it is granted them to act by a free power they act without the resistance of bodies or a re-acting of resistance For matter is the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy and it cannot re-re-act into a spirit which it by no meanes toucheth and with no object affecteth Even as the Angel useth the powred out liquor of the Viall unto the aforesaid slaughter so for the Earth-quake he for the most part makes use of a note or voice For a wandering note was heard in the Air no otherwise than as the creaking of Wheeles driven thereupon as it were a tempestuous murmuring sound succeeded yet without Winde and at that very time the whole tract of so great Provinces trembled at once with a huge horrour Which same note accompanied the trembling of the Earth at every of the three repeated turns The same thing almost happens in Lightning Truly the Lightning burns and causeth melting but surely it smiteth not According to that saying The voice of Thunder shall strike the Earth because it smiteth For Silk-worms die Milk is curdled Ale or Beer waxeth sowre a slain Oxe hanging up retains flaggie flesh unfit to take Salt and that onely by the Thunder-stroak the Lightning doing no hurt there Therefore let the voice of Thunder and the voice of the Earth-quake be the note or tone of ministring spirits But the Stars do not stir up a motive and alterative force of the Air or Water through a note but do act onely by an Aspect which they call an Influence And it hath its action and direction in a moment even as light sight c. For otherwise there should be need of many years before the audible Species or resemblances that are to be heard should come down from Saturn to the places of a Meteor And then a note or sound although it be great yet it faileth by degrees in the way But that the Earth doth tremble with a Tempest of Windes or that the Tempest doth sometimes run successively thorow Villages Cities and as it were thorow street by street in its wheeling about That is wholly by accident and according to the will of him who shaketh the Earth for a monstrous sign Likewise that else-where it doth oft-times tremble in quick Belgium very seldom that changeth not the moving cause For it stands in the free will of him who encloseth the Universe in his Fist who can shake the Earth at his pleasure and alone do marvellous things At the beholding of whom the Earth shall at sometime smoak and the Mountains being melted shall go to ruine But that in another place gapings chaps after an Earth-quake have sometimes appeared and a filthy poyson and fumes of arsenicall bodies have breathed forth that is joyned onely to its naturall causes Nor are they the effects of an Earth-quake but by accident but not the causes But this blindness of causes of the Earth-quake hath been invented the Devill being the Authour whereby mortall men might set apart all fear of the power and so might prevent if not wholly neglect the ends which God hath appointed to himself for the serious reverencing of the power of his Majesty that they being mind-full of the faults of their fore-led life might repent Deh qual possente man conforzze ignote Il terreno a crollar si spesso riede Non e chiuso vapor como altro crede Ne sognato stridente il suol percuote Certo la terra si rissente scuote Perche del peâ—cator sa aggrava il piede Et i nostri corpi impatiente chiede Per riemper se sue spelonche â—uote E linquaggio del ciel che l'huom riprende Il turbo il tuono il fulmine il baleno Hor parla anco la terra in note horrende Perche l'huom ch' esser vuol tutto terreno Ne del cielo il parlar straniero intende I l parlar della terra intenda al meno Behold with what a mighty yet unknown A force the Earthy Body makes a noyse And with so thick a rushing gives a groan 'T is not a vapour hot shut up they 'r toyes Even as some believe which beats the ground Or thumps its entrails with a whistling sound Truly the Earth it selfe doth feele and quake Because the sinners foot doth load its back And our impatient mortall bodies fall In to fill up its own deep Vaults withall The Language of the Heaven which reproves Man is the Whirle-winde Thunder Lightning flash And sp'ritous howling in the Air Ecchoes Now speaks the earth more-o're with horride lash Of signall tokens ' cause since man which would Be wholly earthly doth not understand The Linguo strange of Heaven yet may or should At least the Earth it 's Language apprehend These things nothing hindering there hath not been one wanting who said that from a most deep well of the Castle of Lovaine he by a sure presage foretold an Earth-quake was shortly to be because the water of the same Well three dayes before sent forth the stinking savour of Brimstone and that its contagion yellowness together with the turbulency of the water did bewray it But let that good man know that that Well is one hundred and fifteen foot in depth because they go up to the Castle from the Street that is next unto it by ninety three steps And so that Well in one part is not deeper than its Neighbouring Wells although in the other part where it is co-touching with the Hill of the Castle it is deep as I have said But seeing that a vein of Sulphur is not hidden in the Hill the water could not breath Sulphur which was not there But if it cast the smell of Sulphur a sign might precede God admonishing but it had not Sulphur which neither is in that place nor was enflamed therefore neither could it cause an Earthquake unto all Belgium or the Low Countries Therefore there is no naturall reason why the water
the more hard meats is felt as it were to re-suffer and to undergo a re-acting of digestible things because also that speech of Physitians is too rustical because unlesse that which is to be digested be perfectly cocted and at a set term of time the digestion of the same is in vain expected for it tarrying longer in the stomach is corrupted and so then a new Agent ariseth neither is the former any longer digestible when it is corrupted neither also doth that new Agent re-act in manner of bright burning Iron because there are in that digestible matter parts uncapable of digestion in respect of that stomach Neither also doth the leaven or ferment of bread leaven the powder of glasse or the sand of a flint because it is a strange and uncapable object and not to be subdued by it For so the digesting ferment of the stomach doth ferment the flour of meal but not the brans In the mean time the ferment of the meal suffers nothing by the powder of glass as neither doth that powder re-act resist or truly repel For truly altering ferments do never act but on things that have a co-resemblance but they are quiet do cease and sleep if they have not an object proper for themselves Therefore the hinderances of Agents by an alterative Blas are uncapacities hardnesses impurities unequalities and the requisite movers of space Therefore the action of these is terminated on a proper object and disposeth that object unto periods or ends and manners decreed for it But interposing hinderances are not the re-actions of the patient but the incapacities of the same For neither doth silver re-re-act while it is solved by Aqua fortis with so great a heat although this in the mean time decayeth in acting and loseth its own force and virtue but there is an in-bred property of Spirits and a natural endowment which do operate in acting that by reaching unto their appointed mark they may perfect themselves and bring down their own objects unto bounds naturally enjoyned them which thing distilled Vinegar doth sufficiently teach while it dissolves the stone of Crabs Snails Corals c for the sharp spirit of the Vinegar doth coagulate it self in acting and that which else was volatile and liquid is not onely strained together but also changeth its savour for it collects and constrains it self in a tangible form as if it did more rejoyce to remain in the shape of a more solid body than of a liquor But that such a coagulation and change of savour doth happen by the proper motion of the spirit of Vinegar but not through a re-acting of Bodies standing in the act of dissolution is manifest because there is not made a diminishing of those Bodies even in one grain at least in weight while as in the mean time some measures of stilled Vinegar do undergo the aforesaid change and so it doth not seem consonant to reason for that thing to be done by reason of the bruising or breaking of the stones onely but by reason of a proper natural gift-like unfolding of the Spirits The same thing almost comes to pass while the Spirit of Vitriol waxeth very hot with Mercury For the Mercury remaineth being unchanged in the essence and matter of Mercury onely that it assumes the countenance of snow losing in the mean time nothing of its own substance yet the Spirit of Vitriol passeth over into a true Alume but if the Spirit of Aqua fortis which for the other half of it is also the Spirit of Vitriol be combined with the Mercury that snow of Mercury is not made as neither doth the liquor it self pass over into an Alume And so from hence it appeareth that the action is not proper to the Mercury but to the Spirit of Vitriol diversly disposing it self of its own free accord and according to an in-bred inclination unto divers objects differently changing it self Wherefore the Spirit of Vitriol which is in the Aqua fortis through a strong heat of bubbles stirred up and a tempestuous boiling up dissolveth the Mercury and far otherwise than while it is the naked and simple Spirit of Vitriol which variety indeed in acting doth manifest the various virtues of the acting Spirit rather than those of the Mercury it self because in the one action the Mercury is made invisible which in the other becomes white like snow For the Spirit of Sea-salt although it be most sharp yet it is never changed by the fellowship of Mercury as neither also doth it act into the Mercury And so the effects of actions are seen and not of re-actings So Aqua fortis acts into all metals except gold but with Sal armoniack it acts only into gold but no longer into silver And so there are particular properties of Spirits but not re-actions of a suffering body because it is that which in its own substance and weight sustaineth nothing but a meer and one onely division of it self Therefore Spirits being tossed with divers passions in acting undergo divers transformations but if they remain drowsie and sleeping and do not act on their object they also remain in their antient qualities For that thing appeared at first to happen by reason of the touching of the Mercury because it is that which is also a certain Spirit but afterwards in the silver and gold that was wholly silent But moreover I remember that the Calx or lime of Silver hath drunk into it the liquor of Sulphur which they call a distillation which presently in the Silver laid aside all harshnesse and tartnesse and it changed this liquor into a gauly bitternesse by distilling for the silver remained the same which it was before in substance weight and powder therefore that bitternesse could not be afforded from the silver and for that cause in no wise from a re-acting of the silver but of its own free accord it was made by the property of the Spirit of the Sulphur for neither is there a lesse reason why the same Spirit of Vitriol in diversly acting doth also change it self after a diverse manner than that the same silver should under the boyling up of diverse Spirits wax cruel by a various manner of re-acting on these Especially while that in a Spirit there is made a various transmutation in acting but there is no successive alteration made of the substance of the silver in suffering or diminishing of its weight which things may be far more clearly demonstrated by Adeptists unto whom to wit the one onely and same Liquour Alkahest doth perfectly reduce all tangible Bodies of the whole Universe into the first life of the same without any changing of it self and diminishing of its virtues But it is drawn under the yoak and thorowly changed by its own compeere or co-equal onely For from hence there appeareth a certain sense to be in all particular things the which mediating they do sometimes one way and sometimes another move and unfold themselves about divers objects but not
is a lightsome Being it acts not but by its instrument of the vital aire or by the Archeus as a mean between the light of Life flowing from the father of lights and the body But this aire or Archeus doth not act but after the manner wherein every seminal spirit acteth on the mass subjected under it that is not but by an imprinted mark or sealie Idea which hath known what and which way it must act Therefore all and every disease hath a sealie mark and as it were a seminal act which is expert of things to be acted by it self This Declaration therefore doth far recede or differ from an elementary distemperature from humours and the disproportionable mixture of those from the fight and contrariety of the elements of our composition because every disease is nothing but a Sword to the Life wounding or totally cutting it off For as a Sword doth exhaust the Life together with the arterial blood and vital aire wherein according to the holy Scriptures the Soul it self sitteth So a disease consumeth the same air of Life on which it afresh sealeth an hostile character drawn as well from occasional Causes as gotten through the errour of its own indignation This exact account of a disease being granted lo I come unto the explaining of a disease And first I will demonstrate from the very Theoremes of the Schools that the thingliness or essence of a disease hath been hitherto unknown Whence in the next place any one shall easily judge what hath even hitherto been done in the remedies and vanquishing of diseases I have oft-times promised that I will demonstrate that the Schools have hitherto neglected that is that they have not known the essence root or nature of a disease in its own universal quiddity or thingliness And seeing I have already from the Elements prosecuted that thing even unto a conclusion thorow all their privy shifts now at length by an Anatomy of particulars I shall also stand to my promises if I shall detect the same in the general and especially if I shall shew that thing no longer by the fictions of Elements temperaments and humours but by the very words of Authors whereby they corrupt their Young beginners as it were with a mortal contagion In the premises it hath already been demonstrated by me that the Ages before me being deluded by the trifles of the Peripateticks have been ignorant of the Causes to wit the Matter and Efficient of natural things Then also that a thing it self is nothing besides a connexion of both Causes and that this same thing is in diseases especially seeing a disease although happening unto us by sin is now admitted for a prodigal Son of Nature Truly the univocal or simple homogeneity of Causes in natural Beings hath compelled me hereunto whereby the efficient Cause is denominated from effecting but not from the Effect which is after the Efficiency Therefore the Schools do first of all define a disease to be an affect or disposition which doth primarily hurt the actions of our faculties wherein they do as yet very much stumble For truly first they name this Affect a distemperature of one or two qualities of the first Elements For so they rehearse the same thing because they consess a disease to be an elementary quality it self as it exceedeth a just temperature Therefore a disease shall no longer be that disposition resulting from the first qualities which they suppose immediately to hurt the functions themselves And so they feign the whole disease hereafter to consist in nothing but in a degree or excess of an elementary quality Again now and then they call the very distemperature of qualities not indeed a Disease but well the antecedent cause of the same They will I say have those four solitary qualities to be diseases whether they shall proceed from external qualities co-like unto themselves or whether they owe their beginning in the body to be from a strange disproportion of mixture Furthermore they afterwards combine those qualities in a bride-bed from the congress whereof they then derive their off-spring a Disease to wit they believe that the Elements are so subservient to their own dreams As that also qualities being joyned at their pleasure they have commanded them to answer to as many elements So that those naked qualities being even balaced with feigned elements and dreamed humours they have feigned to be Diseases themselves For in this place I declare the unseasonable yea sporting varieties of the Schools and their poverty greatly fighting otherwise surely I have sufficiently proved elsewhere by a Demonstration chiefly true That in the nature of things there are not four elements and therefore neither are they mixed that bodies which they have called mixt may be thereby constituted and by consequence that neither can distemperatures be accused for diseases As neither that ever there were four constitutive humours of us in the nature of things whereby it is sufficiently and over-manifest that the causes of diseases yea and diseases and the predicament of diseases have been hitherto unknown in the Schools Notwithstanding I will now dissemblingly treat with them by the supposed Positions of the same Schools Therefore the Schools sometimes repenting them of their sayings will have the elementary qualities and not unfrequently the humours equal to these not indeed to be diseases but onely the containing causes of almost all diseases Otherwise again that of those qualities being more intense than is meet a third or neutral one doth arise which they have called the Diathesis or Disposition or Disease it self And so however they toss the business they have hitherto commanded a disease to inhabite among qualities but humours although intemperate ones they for the most part driven out of the rank of diseases Indeed a Cataract in the eye although as a substance it doth immediately intercept the sight yet it cannot be a disease Therefore they have feigned a certain Being of reason and an imaginary relation or obstruction which might contain every property of a disease and might be truly a disease the Cataract being rejected And so by degrees a disease comes down unto non-beings and privations And now and then they for the essence of a disease do ridiculously distinguish a simple distemperature from a conjoyned one and again both of them from a humourous one when as a humour should be a substance void of degrees Indeed they have distinguished the societies of proportionable and disproportionable mixtures of the first qualities into pedigrees and then they have thereby erected specious Schemes and at length they have filled whole Volumes with those fables But at leastwise they have never admitted an evil or vitiated humour to be bred in us which may not presuppose some elementary distemperature to be mother unto it Wherefore a distemperature in the Schools shall be onely the cause of the cause and of the thing caused but it shall not be the thing caused it self or the disease nor in
that have wholly banished salt out of the use of men But the common people deride the Schooles and the use of Salt hath grown frequent in despight of their Rules So that the Authority of the Schooles being despised Food is not onely unpleasant but also unwholsome without salt But if the seasoning of salt smile on the Palate that is not any otherwise favoured than as salt resolves the Excrements which burden the stomach with their muckinesse For if salt be put into the mouth of those that are Catechised or instructed in the Principles of Religion in the first houres of their Nativity as a resembling token of Wisdome But the Schooles have with much endeavour forbidden all eating of salt Truly what other thing is to be presaged from thence but that the Heathenish Schooles do not admit of Wisdome to wit the resembling Mark whereof they advise to be excluded And that the Church doth from the Beginning intend the destruction of Infants For salt is sequestred out of Jakes's by the Boylers of Salt-peter such as was once received into the Body together with the meats Therefore it ought likewise to remain in Duelech it self But there is not so much as the least of Sea-salt found to proceed from Duelech by Art And that thing the Schooles might have learned with no charge if any earnest desire of learning and Charity towards their Neighbour had acted them At leastwise the Boylers of Salt-peter have been more curious or carefull than so many ten thousands of Phisitians The reproach therefore re-bounds on themselves as every one of the vulgar sort doth now know how unpolished the Decrees of the Schooles are Since they know not in the Dietary part of Medicine to what end they forbid salted things Nor indeed had it been to be feared if not salt it self but onely the spirit thereof should hurt the Diseased with the stone 1. Because salt is forbidden by the Schooles Ages and the Schooles being hitherto ignorant whether there be any spirit to be found in salt or of what condition it might be 2. That power in acting is in vain which is never brought forth into act For it is sufficiently manifest that out of Sea-salt received into the Body there is never any possible drawing forth of its spirit in us For it is most sharp neither hath it a Remedy like unto it self for extinguishing of the burning heats of the urine even while the stone is present in the Bladder also in the Stranguries of old people it hinders putrefactions dissolveth mucky filths and expelleth sands Therefore salt is profitable for those that have the stone as well in its body as in its spirit For indeed Fountain-salt was given by the providence of divine Bounty for the necessities of mortal men That where the Continent departs from the Sea by a long Tract of Land saltish Springs or Fountaines might supply that defect of the Sea But the Schooles are so far from repaying thanks to God for his Benefit that they accuse God to have given salt not onely in vain but also for the destruction of men It is to be noted in the mean time that salt flowes down into the Sea from many and plentifull Fountaines yet that the saltnesse of the Sea is not increased thereby because something of salt ascends by degrees from the Sea in manner of a vapour and however it may be converted into its first matter of water at leastwise in the Clouds it hath some kind of constancy or perseverance in it From whence it is no wonder that Rain-water by it self is not to be corrupted in any Ages But in the more hot Zone that salt doth exhale even out of the Sea is manifest for there is none but smells out whether fleshes are boyled in a pot with salt or without it But the Sea-salt seeing it makes for the preservation of the Element doth difficultly exhale Therefore the Spanish Sea well nigh wants a vapoury salt is stronger and the more expels putrefaction and Duelech On the contrary the Seas of Lorraine abound with a vapoury salt and it in part waxeth sower in the stomach Also that vapoury spirit of salt which is sublimed being as it were the flowre of salt differs from the distilled spirit of salt just even as Oyl of Olives doth from Oyl of Bricks For the spirit of Oyl of Olives which departs in its first moity with me doth at length dissolve a silver thred in a Bottle But Oyl of Olives preserves Iron from rust And far more powerfully doth that remaind of Oyl from whence the aforesaid half or moity was withdrawn preserve 〈…〉 rustinesse Therefore it is to be noted that there is not a more pure and 〈…〉 than that which is re-cocted or re-boyled from the brine of Swines-flesh For 〈…〉 seasoning or operating on the Swines-flesh its object it lost its more vapoury spirit by coagulation And so the residing salt being almost fixed and freed from its earthlinesse is found to be clear and most fit for Sawces It being also cast into an Hogshead of sowring Ale or Beer preserves the same which other salt doth not so do Wherefore it drinks up into its self and transchangeth the superfluous sharp spirits in us which are the Authours of all Corruption if they shall be out of the shops of the first digestion It being thus re-boyled with Spanish-salt it is almost equal in goodnesse with that which was at first dissolved in the bright burning-pot Since therefore Sea-salt is not of the composition of urine but is wholly a forreigner unto it and so remaines yea since Sea-salt being detained in the urine keeps its nature unmixed and unchanged even until the last extraction of things and separation of the Salt-peter it is certain that it hath not any businesse with Duelech And therefore that neither is the least of Sea-salt ever found in the composition hereof seeing it more destroyes the native birth of Duelech than it doth promote it Therefore Sea-salt is forbidden by the Schooles unto those that have the stone without a foundation Thus much of Salts But I had hitherto learned that Duelech was an irregular coagulated matter bred from the salt of Urine which had not its peere in the whole Universe for that Mans urine is never found out of man For therefore it irked me not many times to distill Urine Therefore I decreed to putrifie my own urine for full 40 days in a Horses belly that by a foregoing ferment of putrefaction the unlike parts thereof might dis-unite Then I distilled abovt a half part thereof But being called away from the work by reason of business of my Family and afterwards being letted through the Feasts of Pentecost I ceased from it for fifteen dayes But the Vessel receiving it was exceeding great clear Crystalline and precious the which I had now sequestred from the long snout of an Alembick all that interval of time when as therefore I returned to the Work first I powred forth
as in the water of the Spaw in Duelech c. a new and neutral Being is constituted such as is Oker of the spirit of Sulphur and the volatile vein of Iron But in the Tartar of Wine onely the tart spirit or sour liquor of the Wine is changed into a Salt and the Lee remaineth such as it was before And therefore the matter constituted thereby is again dissolvable For a metal stone or solid Body is not unbodyed changed or volatilized by reason of the corroding of spirits That is manifest For Silver Pearls Corâ—als Spongy-stones Crabstones Snails-stones c. although by Aqua fortis and other sharp Liquors they vanish out of our fight yet they are stones as before even as concerning Fevers indeed the spirit did what it could but it operated as it wore in vain upon the body while in corroding that body it coagulated it self For indeed there is in the whole nature of the Universe one onely fire the burning Vulcan So also there is none but one onely Liquor which dissolveth all solid bodyes into their first matter without any changing or diminishment of their faculties which thing Adeptists have known and will testifie but in all other faculties of Liquors a body can never radically co-mingle it self with the solving Liquor And therefore it is corroded indeed but is not intimately solved or loosened even as otherwise is required for a formal transmutation For every sharp gnawing spirit in gnawing of another body is coagulated and well nigh fixed and passeth over into the form of a thickned salt yet the body that hath suffered the wil of the gnawing spirit to be done upon it doth not act any thing on that spirit which in gnawing by its own proper action coagulated it self the which indeed comes to passe while two active spirits run together on each other For then there is a double action whereby both of them do mutually act on both For therefore such an action of theirs is made with a thorow radical mixture and there is constituted of them both an of-spring of unseparable mixture and this transchanged body is a neutral product from them both But if Paracelsus bad timely of fitly contemplated instead of his Tartar of Wine he had taken the Oker of the water of the Spaw and had spoken something more probable than that there were Liquors in all things which were coagulated after the manner of Tartar in Wine and that they were the common mother and matter of any Diseases whatsoever Oker indeed the daughter of the Spaw is not again resolved like as Tartar of Wine is and yet it differs from Duelech as much as a Mineral stonifying doth from the stone in man For in this the Spirit the Coagulater existing in the urine operates by vertue of its own and of a different salt upon a hoary and putrifying spirit of earth without the boyling up or belching forth of a wild Gas and so it finisheth its operation and coagulates it self with the spirit of Wine that is proper to the urine in a moment even as I have above declared in the handicraft Operation of the spirit of urine and Wine or of a burning water But the acide spirit of the water of the Spaw having sprung up from an Embryonated or non-shaped Sulphur do operate first in a long Tract do stir up bubbles and a wild Gas and at length affix themselves to the Vessel For otherwise if that Gas cannot be belched forth the waters of the Spaw remain safe being fit for healing For if the Gas be hindered from going forth it hinders whereby the subsequent effect cannot follow and the spirits are rendred feeble and barren in acting But the lee of Wine seeing it hath its own coagulation and that which is proper to it self it hath no need to attain it from elsewhere But since the sharpish spirit of Wine hath gnawn the lee there is no reason that it should give that in gnawing which it self hath not in it self Therefore in the generation of the Tartar of Wine that sharpish saltish spirit shall be coagulated indeed by reason of the earth of dreg but it shall remain in the shape of a dissolvable salt and not in the form of a rocky stone By reason of that Rule that a transmutation of the essence presupposeth a transmutation of the matter Therefore the earthy body whether it be dissolved by a Corrosive or not keeps its own antient Being Because that Dissolver doth not pierce the matter dissolved in the radical bond of connexion The which notwithstanding in things that are essentially to be transchanged is exceeding necessary to be done Therefore let the young beginners in Chymistry learn that bodies are not resolved by the calcinations of Corrosives although they are also often repeated unlesse a fermental impression through putrifaction whichgoes before every radical dissolution doth interpose Camphor indeed in Aqua fortis assumeth the nature of a swimming Oyl but that Corrosive being washed away by common water the Camphor is presently what it was before whether that be once done or lastly a thousand times For in my young beginnings I rejoyced that by a Retort at the seventh Repetition I had dispatched Gold into the shape of a Pomegranate-coloured Oyle As being mindfull that he who knew how to destroy Gold hath known likewise how to make or build it up But the Corrosive its Companion being taken away the Gold returned into its self and my vain joy ceased He labouring in vain to extract that which is not in it They also labour in vain who do not operate by due meanes The generation of Duelech therefore is not the imaginary stonifying of a cocted muscilage or of a feigned phlegme dryed by the heat of the place or confirmed or hardened by drying for so a Bole or clod onely should be resolvable but not Duelech but there is a passing over of three spirits at once into Duelech by a true essential transmutation Truly Bodyes do not act on Bodyes by a natural action of Composition but whatsoever Bodyes do perform on each other that is done by reason of weight greatnesse or magnitude hardnesse figures and motions And truly those are serviceable for Science Mathematical but scarce for Science Natural But if corporeal salts do operate it comes to pass either because they after some sort contain a volatile spirit or do find that spirit in a Body Let young Beginners at least remember that Bodyes after whatsoever manner they shall be once intermingled by co-melting do notwithstanding remain in their antient essence unlesse they are transchanged by the fire or a ferment Lastly that Bodies do operate nothing on Spirits but do onely limit these by suffering Which operation of Bodyes therefore is not a true re-acting but father a meet effect of spirits resulting from the proper activity of the same For therefore Spirits when their faculties are woren out and exhausted do voluntarily decay in the end of their motion And
not the causes of natural things 6. The Form is not the Act. 7. A false Maxim of Aristotle 8. He erreth in the attributes of the Form 9. He knew not the true efficient cause 10. The Father is not the efficient cause of the Son 11. There are two onely causes in Nature 12. The End hath no reason of a cause in nature 13. That the three beginnings of Bodies of Paracelsus have not the nature of causes 14. Whence the definition of any sort soever of natural things is to be required 15. The definition of a Horse 16. The division of sublnnary bodies among the Auntients is dangerous or destructive 17. The definition of Animalls Plants and Mineralls 18. The name of Subject sounds improperly in Philosophy why 't is to be called a co-worker 19. Things without life that are produced how they receive their ends 20. Why the seminal Power is attributed to the Earth 21. That there is not a conjunction of the Elements 22. The Principles of the Chymists have not the power of principiating 23. That there are two onely Principles or beginnings of Bodies to wit that from which and by which 24. What the Ferment or Leaven of things is 25. What are Ferments in their kinde 26. What is immediately in places 27. The Ferments of the Air and water 28. There is onely a speculative distinction of the Ferment and efficient cause 29. The Ferment is the original of some seeds 30. The principiating Ferment of what sort it is and where 31. Ferments are immediately in places in things themselves as if in places 32. The name of matter is speculative but that of water is practical 33. What the inward efficient cause is 34. A false Maxim of Aristotle 35. The efficient cause in natural things is explained 36. Fire is not of the number of seminal efficient causes as it hath deceived the Aristotelicks neither is the influence of the Heavens among the number of efficients 37. The diversity of the efficient and effective cause 38. The wit of Aristotle is ambitious and idle 39. A false Maxim of Aristotle 40. Aristotle was more able in the Mathematicks or learning by de monstration than in Nature 41. How great hath been the ignorance of the Schooles in natural things hitherto 42. Aristotle is in the things of natural Philosophy ridiculous and to himself contradictory I Come into a forsaken house to re-melt the dross that is to be swept out by me Most things are to be searched into and those things to be taught which are unknown those things which have been ill delivered are to be overthrown what are unclean are to be wiped off and what things are false are to be cast away but all and every thing duly to be confirmed But let it be sufficient to have forewarned thee of these things to withdraw wearisomness if happily new and Paradoxall things do more trouble than true things delight The knowledge of Nature is onely taken from that which is in act and in the thing it self for it is that which no where consisteth in feigned Meditations Indeed the whole composure of Nature is individual in very deed in act and fastned in any Body except the number of abstracted Spirits Lastly and chiefly I seriously admonish that as often as I speak of the causes of Natural things these things are not at all to be taken for the Elements or for the Heaven because they supernaturally began with the Title of Creation and to this day do also constantly remain the same which they were from the beginning Therefore I understand the causes of natural things to presuppose a Being subject to change And although the Bodies of the Elements have come under Nature yet their speculation is of another manner of unfolding and another kinde of Philosophy For they who before me have thought that to all Generations or Births of Bodies four Elementsdo co-mix have beheld the Elements after the heathenish manner have tried by their lies or devises to marry the Elements obey them Therefore every natural Body requireth no other than corporeall beginnings for the most part subject to change and succeeding course of dayes but Nature doth not consist of an undetermined hyle or matter and an impossible one neither hath it need of such a Principle as neither of privation but order and life are in the efficient cause of necessity And every thing is empty void dead and slow unless it hath been constituted or sometimes be constituted by a vitall or seminal Principle present with it And moreover those Lawes should rush down together unless there were a certain order in things which did interpose which might incline proper things to the support or necessities of the common good Aristotle hath declared four constitutive causes of things which have made also their own Authour ignorant of Nature For in the first place he confoundeth the Principle with the material cause to wit calling the first cause an undetermined or unlimited matter or a corporeal subjected heap wanting a formall limitation And then he confoundeth the other cause even the inward Essence or form of a thing with another of his Principles Next the third which is external he calleth the efficient cause and at length the fourth he nameth the end to wit unto which every thing is directed But this cause in the minde of the efficient he would have to be the first of the three former causes and so natural things not onely to be principiated or made to begin by the Being of Reason and mental but also as if they were inanimate things they did lie hid through the end in the minde of the efficient cause But if therefore he doth badly search into natural causes he hath far worse appointed a supernatural end in the minde of the first mover in the room of a natural cause or he requireth a mentall conceit of the end in things without life Truly I who have not been accustomed through the floath of consenting to serve others enterprizes without foreweighing them have very much found that the three latter causes in natural knowledge are false yea and hurtful But the first of the four I will by and by shew to be fabulous For first of all since every cause according to nature and succession of dayes is before its thing caused Surely the form of the thing composed cannot be the cause of the thing produced but rather the last perfect act of generation and the veriest essence and perfection it self of the thing generated for the attaining whereof all other things are directed Therefore I meditate the form to be rather as an effect than as a cause of the thing Yea more For the Form seeing it is the end of generation is not meerly the act of generation but of the thing generated and rather a power that may be attained in generation but the matter or subject of generation as it is in act so also its act is an inward worker or
Beere belcheth forth its Gas an easie sudden death and choaking doth break forth Wherefore I have greatly grieved and pittied mans condition that by so gross negligence of the Schooles the more profound Remedies of fumes are almost suppressed whereby not onely those who faint are refreshed but also whereby the healings of most Diseases are performed Which thing concerning odours or smells at sometime explained in the matter of Medicine every one shall with me more easily disclose Surely almost all Medicines are neglected which do restore the strength and they have applied themselves onely to the diminishments of bodies by the with-drawings of bloud and solutive scammoneated potions and by Cauteries Baths Clysters Sweats and Cantharides For a Gas is more fully implanted and odours do keep a more immediate co-touching with the vitall Spirits than Liquors if they are not partakers of a poysonous infection at leastwise of the dulled properties of second qualities and the which qualities or especially that sublime one of the first digestion they do lay aside as it were Soils covered with Clay if they are not as yet received with a great averseness of the Archeus or they being rebellious and stubborn do with anguish resist the digestive powers Notwithstanding the Scripture might be opposed against me which saith concerning man Thou art Earth and into Earth thou shalt go How therefore shall flesh bone c. be materially of water alone But I will say this from the force of the same Argument If man be Earth how therefore do the Schooles affirm that man materially is not one onely Element but foure Elements therefore from that Text those things which I have spoken above are confirmed To wit that the Earth is not in the holy Scriptures a primary Element but every thing co-agulated of water is called Earth because by its consistence it is more likened to Earth than to Water and so the veriest Earth it self the prop of nature is of water no lesse than Man Wood Ashes a Stone c. CHAP. XIX The Image of the Ferment begets the Masse or lump with childe of a Seed 1. There is no seminall successive change without a Ferment 2. Handicraft operation is brought into a Circle by Ale or Beere 3. The Ferment makes volatile that which otherwise is changed into a Coal 4. It is proved by handicraft-operation in the venall Bloud 5. The Bloud attains its own various ferments in the Kitchins of the members 6. The unconstancie of Paracelsus is taken notice of 7. The Beginnings of Paracelsus are made by the fire but they are not in Bodies 8. There are double ferments from whence are the seeds of things 9. The Birth of Insects 10. 'T is not sufficient to have said that Insects are born of putrefaction or corruption 11. A twofold manner of generation 12. How seedes are made 13. In what manner an odour or smell causeth a ferment and seed 14. A Scorpion from Basil 15. The ferment in voluntary seedes reacheth to the Horizon or bound of life 16. The ferment of Diseases and healings 17. Almost all Medicines do act by way of an odour onely 18. Therefore seedes are strong onely in a specificall odour 19. An odour and light do pierce the spirits 20. Odours do cause or incite and cure the Plague and divers Diseases 21. Art having forgotten its perfume is translated into a servile rage or madness 22. Vnappeaseable pains are presently appeased by the odour of an outward application 23. The ferment is the Parent of transmutations 24. Of what quality the ferment of the stomach is 25. Why very many do abhorre Cheese 26. A sharp fermentall thing differeth from soure things 27. From whence belching is 28. The labour of Wisdom 29. All things which are believed to be mixt are onely of Water and a ferment 30. The ferment of the Equinoctiall Line 31. The progress of seedes and ferments unto proPagation 32. The originall and progress of Vegetables 33. Ferments do sometimes operate more powerfully than Fire 34. Paracelsus is noted AS no knowledge in the Schooles is scantier than the knowledge of a Ferment so no knowledge is more profitable The name of a Ferment or Leaven being unknown hitherto unless in making of bread when as notwithstanding there is made no successive change or transmutation by the dreamed appetite of matter but onely by the endeavour of the ferment alone In times past leaven and all things leavened were forbidden and the Mystery hidden in the Letter was then of right interpreted according to the Letter For as leavens or ferments were altogether the way-leaders and necessary unto every transmutation of a thing so they did denote corruption unconstancy and impurity and therefore a flight from leaven was enjoyned I will first of all explain a thing surely so paradoxall in naturall Philosophy by an example The purest of Ales or Beeres which is deservedly the nourishing juyce or meat melting or finished right of the Grain requireth so much Grain by how much there is capacity and largeness in the Vessel or Hogs-head And so indeed that the Bran being taken away all the Meal doth melt into the Ale or Beer and the Water onely supplies the place of the Bran. That Ale or Beer by a very little ferment or leaven being administred doth boyl up by fermenting in Cellars it waxeth clear by degrees and the dreg falls down to the bottom at length something doth fermentally wax soure by which tartness it consumeth all its dreg And then it looseth more and more daily its sharp or pricking soureness At length it is deprived of the taste virtues and body of the meal And last of all it of its own accord returns into water That Ale or Beere being distilled layeth aside very much residence in the bottom like a Syrupe which at length by proceeding is changed into a Coal But if that same Ale or Beere by the degrees of the ferment shall passe over into water it leaveth no more dregs in the bottom while it is distilling than otherwise the water from whence it was boyled did contain because the natall sediment of the waters is not subject to the ferment of the Grain since it is not the object thereof but the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy Therefore the Grains do return unto their first matter whereof they are which is water and that by the virtue of the ferment onely In the next place every one of us doth daily frame to himself 7 or 10 ounces of bloud but at leastwise in our standing age as much bloud must needes be consumed as is a-new generated For else a man might straightway fear a hugeness or excessive greatness And then the bloud is by degrees changed into a vitall muscilage or flimy juyce the true immediate nourishment of the members of which it is wont to be said we are nourished by those things whereof we consist But they will have this nourishment to be sprinkled on all the particular members in
rage Furthermore the transmutation of the Arterial bloud into Spirit which is begun in the heart is ripened in the current of the Arteries or stomach of the heart Neither therefore is it a wonder that in the Spleen abounding with so many Arteries a Ferment and the first motions of the heart are established instead of a stomach the mentall and sensitive Souls being indeed Saturns Kingdoms For the digestion of the heart is with a full transmutation of the arteriall Bloud into Spirit without a dreg and smoakiness Because it is that which neither containeth filths nor admits of diversities of kinde neither doth the Spirit the Son of heat degenerate by reason of heat Indeed it is the immediate operation of the sensitive Soul alwayes univocall or single like to it self and to life for the life that is uttered by vitall motions Therefore the chief aims of the Pulses are 1. A bringing of the venall bloud from the bosom of the hollow vein unto the left womb of the heart 2. An increase of heat 3. A framing of arterial bloud 4. And again a producing of vitall Spirit 5. And then there hath been another ultimate aim of Pulses to wit that the original life residing in the implanted Spirit of the heart may be participated of Therefore I will repeat what I have said elsewhere To wit that some Forms do glister as in Stones and Mineralls but some moreover do shine by an increased light as in Plants but others are also lightsome or full of light as in things soulified And so a vitall lightsomness is granted to the vitall Spirit by a kindling not indeed of fieriness but of enlightning and specificall or differing by its particular kindes So indeed Fishes do not live more unhappily are more straightly and lively and longer moved than hot bruit Beasts The Schooles in the room of those things which I have already demonstrated do suppose the bloud in the Liver to receive the nature of a Spirit which perhaps they therefore call naturall To wit such an Air as is wholly in all juyces of Herbs and from hence at length they will have the vitall Spirit to be immediately bred and made But I do from elsewhere derive the Spirit and from a far more noble race But whether the Schooles or I do more rightly phylosophize let the Reader judge who now drinks down both Doctrines together he being at least mindefull of that which I am straightway to say to wit that sometimes the whole arterial bloud and the nourishable Liquor created from thence or the nearest nourishment of the solid parts are at length dispersed by the transpirative evaporation of the Body without any dregs or remainder of a dead head And therefore that the Reader may from thence think that the arterial bloud is of it self inclined that it may sometimes be made Spirit which is not equally presumed of the vapour of the venall bloud For therefore they have been ignorant that the whole bloud of the Arteries is often turned into a spiritual vapour or vitall Spirit But the venall bloud if it be changed in our Glasses by a gentle luke-warmth into a vapour it leaves a thick substance and at length a Coal in the bottom Therefore the Doctrine of the Schooles is far remote from the knowledge of the Spirits who think the vitall Spirits to be framed of a vapour or watery exhalation for they have neglected in this vapour of the venal bloud how of bread and water and venal bloud prepared thence not indeed a watery exhalation as they think but a Salt and enlightned Spirit is stirred up and its heat not onely made hot but also making hot For no Authour hath hitherto diligently searched into that vitall light whereby the Spirit is enlightned and is after a sort made hot So that the Life Light Form and sensitive Soul are as it were made one thing Again the rotten Doctrine of the Schooles confoundeth the ends of Pulses and breathing To wit that Breathing is made for the nourishment of the vital spirit the life of the fire which they will have to be nourished with aire the cooling refreshment of the heart and expelling of smoaky vapours For they intend or incline to nourish the vitall heat and coolingly to refresh or to diminish it which things how they can agree together let others shew I am willingly ignorant thereof at least in the greatest want of vital spirit and while the increase thereof is chiefly desired then indeed there is the least and slowest elevation of the Arterie And on the other hand while the Spirit aboundeth there is the greatest elevation of the Artery I confesse indeed that breathing is drawn by the bridles of the Will or by the instruments of voluntary motion but the Pulse not so But seeing that a sound breast may satisfie by its breathings the ends of the Pulses the Pulse should not therefore be necessary as long as any one is cold and his breathing doth sufficiently inspire But seeing notwithstanding in the mean time the Pulse doth not therefore pause surely there must needs be one cause or necessity of the Pulses and another cause or necessity of breathing For we percieve the necessities of breathing we also do measure our breathing at our pleasure and some can wholly press it together or suppress it in themselves But why do we not feel the more vitall and no less urgent necessities of the Pulses Chiefly seeing it is the life that is the Original of sensibility which alone indeed doth feel all its own necessity and doth alone exclude us from every act of feeling Wherefore hence I conjecture that there are other necessities unknown to the antients I know indeed that from the Arterial bloud and from the vital spirit there are no dregs filths or superfluities expelled as I shall shew in its place but that smoaky vapours are wanting where there is no adultion but that the venal bloud in the wasting of it self by the voluntary guidance of heat doth produce a Gas as water doth a vapour or exhalation And that that Gas which the Schools do signifie to be the spirit of the Liver or natural spirit of the venal bloud is subsequently of necessity expelled it remains without controversie For otherwise a man being almost killed with cold should the sooner wax hot again if he should for some hours hold his breath understand it if the breath should be drawn for cooling refreshment notwithstanding neither indeed in that state doth he notably stop his breath upon pain of death Also a fish wants Lungs and breathing for the bubbles which do sometimes belch forth are blasts of ventosities of digestion but not breathings But Frogs and Sea-monsters that utter a voice have little Bellows which perform the office of Lungs yet Fishes are not colder than Frogs yea Frogs and Horse-leeches are preserved under the mud all the Winter from corruption and do live without breaching yet not without a Pulse Therefore there is one
or downwards beset to wit when as that which I but now before spake concerning hoarsnesse is cast out of the breast by Coughs Therefore the Snivel of the nostrils dropping down from above even as also that which is â—â—it out by Coâ—â—bs doth take its rise from the Keeper the faculty an excrement indeed in it self profitable but through errour of the Keeper hurtful But I call these powers placed at both the solding doors of the gates of the air Keepers or Watchmen and oft-times erring or wandring ones while by reason of a frequent strife with forreign injuries the Keeper doth not rightly execute his Offices Yet the Keeper is not to be numbred under the Quaternion of faculties to wit the attractive digestive retentive and expulsive Because it doth not onely expell its own but also frameth its own and indeed onely excrements which are not made by digestion but by an abortive or miscarrying power Wherefore the Schools have altogether neglected both these Faculties prefixed before the doors of the Brain and Lungs and have dedicated both onely to the Brain and have accused onely the distemper hereof in those who are in the most perfect health As long the Keeper is in its right-strength as a Conqueress of the Cruelty of the Air it overcomes but when by reason of its much broken strength it cannot satisfie its first ordination according to its desire it at least frames much Snivel that it may wash off the conceived blemish in separating about which it was not at first bruised Therefore the Keeper differs from the digestive and family-administring property of the Brain And it happens that one is hurt the other remaining safe which truth sneezing medicines do discover unto us which do presently after the neighbour Snivel being dispatched stir up meer waterishnesses most speedily brought forth by the provoked Keeper So that at length if the sneezing medicine shall be the sharper fibers of venal blood do fall down with the thin muck and a salt water waxing pale is expunged from the red According to the Proverb he that expungeth too much doth at length draw forth blood For the red blood begâ—n to wax palish which through the troublesomnesse of sneezing was untimely drawn oâ— allured otherwiâ—e it had been snivel Therefore the Keeper doth first of all witnesse Divine Providence to have watched over both Bowels in so ready and frequent a necessity Also they do bewray the effects not indeed of the digestion of the Brain and Lungs but of their own proper power which neither brings forth diseasie effects unlesse it wander from its mark Therefore it is false to have said that a pose is healthy as being the expunger or wiper out of filths For the Offices of both the Keepers and their errours I have by the way already touched Now moreover for the confirmation of the granted Doctrine I will explain the exorbitances of the wandering or eâ—ring Keeper As the Keeper hath received its Lievtenantship chiefly by reason of the cruelties of the adverse Air so it also moderateth the same taking to it a matter obeying its functions to wit out of the masse of the whole to wit of the liquor Latex and venal blood Which Doctrine although it shew a novelty and for that cause may carry difficulties with it yet the ignorance of Ages is never able to prescribe to the truth For first of all a multiplicity of matter being drawn out under the errour of the Keeper sheweth the same not to be the excrement of the brain otherwise sound and strong Therefore the instinct of preparing speedy ready and diverse mucks is raised up from â—lswhere Indeed the Powers are for the washing of the filths off the atomes of the air therefore placed at the doors or entrance of the Bowels that are passable for Air Surely all things proceed well and orderly so long as the Keeper doth not exceed its own limits But seeing all humane things are exposed to ruines where as often as the Keeper wandreth from its aim presently Poses or Distillations Hoarsnesses Coughs c. do invade us after a miserable manner Concerning the Grief or Stuffing of a distilled Rheume or Pose I have already spoken sufficiently Now moreover I will speak of the Cough The Cough ariseth from a feeling of that which is hurtful troubling the wind-pipe from the beginning thereof even unto the bottome or depth of the Lungs to wit smoaks smoaky vapours sharp exhalations minerals and likewise moist vapours stinking ones c. At length cruel cold overcomes the force of its Inne as if tending to the extinguishing of the vital guest The Cough therefore is an effect of the act of Feeling for as soon as the spirit implanted in those parts is grieved with a trouble leaâ—ing on it from without the Keeper presently performs his own office For that unnamed Faculty doth readily call to it as much out of the mass of the juyce Latex as seemeth fit for it and transchangeth it into snivel which in manner of a dew it thrusts forth unto the wind-pipe whereby the injury of the Air may the lesse nakedly and immediately affect the solid pâ—â—â— it self but may break it self against the aforesaid coat of snivel But alas I when either the outward injury is greater than that which may â—â—ffer it self to be mitigated by touching or doth more deeply strike the very substance of the wind-pipe or Lungs now the Keeper stumbleth neither doth it withdraw its aid onely from the Lateâ— but doth alienate the very substance of the next nourishment and wander into a muckie glew indeed so much the nearer to the immediate nourishment of the Bowel by how much it shall come deeper unto a Colour of yellow looking ruddy and nearer to redness and having slidden from that Colour it returns into its former Colour while it shall approach from a ruddy Colour nearer to the yellowness of Chaffe and from thence at length unto the similitude of the white of an Egg. Hence on the other hand in hectick Fevers the snivel becomes bloudy and assumeth the Colour of the more dark ashes while the very substance of the nourishment it self being transchanged departs and doth there shew forth a failing integrity of life Then indeed the stinking smell of a dead Carcase beginning in the breath doth bewray the faintings or doataâ—â—s of the Archeus of the Lungs Therefore the snivel doth readily serve for a partition wall between the hurtful thing coming unto it and the forces or strength of the Inn wherefore it hath a saltness brought to it as the prick of its expulsion that it may provoke the feeling of the Wind-pipe And in the smallness of Salt snivel Coughs are dry But because old Age is likened to a defect and the Lungs are first deficient as above hence Coughs are natural to old Age as it were by property and they are scarce silent do scarce cease or are restrained woren-out nature not admitting a restauration These things of the
but afterwards as it were that of a burning Drop Being increased it afterwards stirs up Pains Burnings and at length oft-times Swellings For then the sharpness being conceived in the Spirit by a spiritual Fermentation to wit by an active alteration defiles the Spermatical or seedy Glew which is conjoyned between the Ligaments and the Bones I have already before demonstrated that the Character of the Gowt is of its own disposition bred to infect and to be transferred with the seed to wit even as Mercury infects the Mouth and Teeth but the Spittle of a mad Dog the brain as it were in an Inn in which it oft-times lurketh for a long Race of years Wherefore by virtue of a co-resemblance it is agreeable to truth that the Character or Impression of the Gowt doth originally respect the Seeds Notwithstanding seeing nature is wholly careful of the Sex and a diligent preserver of the particular kinds to be preserved and a saver thereof she peculiarly what she can forsees that that Character doth not infect the Species or that it do not fall on the Stones wherefore she could not at least prevent that in respect of its disposition it doth not Immediately infect the liquor next to the Seed which Paracelsus calls the Sunovie being plentifully powred forth between the chests of the Ligaments and the co-touchings of the Bones But at the very moment of Copulation the Character of the Gowt otherwise sleeping in the Spirit the Archeus being stirred up under so great a stirring of Lust is con-tempered with the Spirit together with the seed plainly after an irregular manner because nature being then unable to govern the Rains could not restrain but that the Poyson of the Character doth fermentally infect the Lustful seed Therefore seeing the Seed or Character of the Gowt doth regularly defile the Spermatical or Seedy parts therefore as speedily as may be the Sunovie which no where happens alone but where two Bones do mutually touch each other Hence is the place or Nest of the Gowt in the Joynts which things seeing they ought to succeed by causes already constituted nature being at least needy of her own preservation doth not suffer the imprinted Spirits to infect the Sunovie but in places far distant from the heart For from hence the name of Podagra or Gowt of the Feet and of Chiragra or Gowt of the Hands is borrowed But at length when as the Disease hath gotten strength in going and nature hath lost hers the Gowt molesteth more-nigh places also Therefore the sharpness of the Gowt being conceived is in the Spirit as also in the seed potentially without an actual tartness to wit even as the seed of a Pear doth not shew forth the tast of the Fruit but while the time of ripening is urgent or at hand a sharpness is actuated in the Spirit and desiles this which in a little space after defiles the Sunovie with its own Ferment no otherwise than as the smell of a soure Earthen-pot doth a little after curdle new Milk poured into it But in the mean time while these things happen within the whole Archeus of the body is altered in himself For many Gowty persons have known that they did foretel to themselves a fit at hand from the Excrement breeding between their Toes its being changed which thing surely doth not bewray so much the defluxion of a Humour as the very altering of the Sweat and Latex it self The Sunovie therefore from whence or what time it once falls down or becomes sharp cannot but provoke Paines wherefore by reason of a greater and less sharpness do the heats greatnesses or cruelties properties of the Gowt only differ But the Sunovie is a certain cleer Muscilage or slymie juyce such as drops out of the shanks of a killed Calfe when his feet are cut off but a sharpness being presently conceived the Sunovie waxeth clotty in the form of Cheese and becomes thick And so also it is thereby rendred unapt that according to a wonted Tenour of health it can wholly exhale without the residing of a dead Head And hence the degenerate diseasie Birth becomes an unhappy mother of knots for then it suffers a puffing away of the watery parts the remainders of the thick and hardened Sunovie being retained Hence are those monsters Lime and Chalke Therefore that sharpness is the cause of the pain but the pain is the cause of the flowing forth of the neighbouring venal bloud which is good and guiltless But the afluxion of bloud is not a defluxion from the Head or Liver sent thither thorow straight passages of wayes impossible to the understanding And although it may deceive the unwary senses and they may seem to feel a defluxion from aboue yet they are only the deceitful Judgments of the senses even as when the Tooth akes an increase seemeth to raine down to the payning causes on the whole side of the Head no otherwise than as at the pain of the cleaving of the Skin at the roots of the Nailes of the Fingers or a White-flaw a Kernel appears under the Arm-pit For by a local Remedy the pain of the Teeth departs or it being pulled out by the roots ceaseth and the Kernel vanisheth when as the Finger is eased of pain This is the original root of the Gowt this is the manner of its making the which surely is confirmed by things helpful and hurtful Not indeed that I do approue of that Maxime shameful in it self or that I will have curative judgments to be drawn from thence But errors being sometimes admitted do instruct Judicious erring persons who are willing to be wise in Charity as good Remedies do confirm good operators And therefore whatsoever begins a subtile sharpness in the Spirit doth ripen increase or promote the same that also Spurs on the Fits of the Gowt of which sort are white sharpish Wines containing little of Wine and much of Vinegar being the more largely drunk and likewise whatsoever things are corruptives of the liquor Later as Asparagus c. In like manner also whatsoever things do take away sharpness out of the Spirit of life and the Latex before the fit being inwardly taken or outwardly applyed do remove prevent or preserve from the fit at leastwise they do mitigate the pains and hinder the knots But in curing the Gowt the sharpness produced is not to be regarded which is instead of a fruit and of a product but we must meditate after what manner the Seminal oâ—seedy Character of the Gowt may be abolished out of the Spirit of Life The which otherwise remaining nothing is done which is worthy a choice Physitian For neither doth every Letter-Carrier come unto the Caskets of the vital Spirit but only the Embassadour who is a Friend And therefore the purging by the Coralline secret kills the Gowt in its seed But that Arcanum is not the Colour or Tincture of Coral as the rout that are ignorant of Chymical matters do
poysons of Minerals are bred of Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries whereby their fury is propagated by a Seed Analogical or agreeable in proportion But how evident is that thing in the company of Vegetables where those seminal perturbations and therefore also co-natural ones are by Seeds transplanted with a continued course For we may well know any kind of poysons which are reduced by the ranks of perturbations by distinguishing of them Consequently also the knowledge of specifical properties is drawn per quia or from the Effect of the Cause if they are reduced unto the certain orders of perturbations or disturbances and affections Even as more largely elsewhere concerning the Plague So indeed many things are searched into and found out we thereby by the Effects come to the Causes and being led by the hand from one knowledge to another the poysons of an Erisipelas and Dysentery being in their Tearms from the wroth of the Archeus their cure is in a Hare wherein is fear meekesse flight and an harmless life Neither is the argument of contrariety of value For first of all I have admitted of contrarieties in living Creatures and I say that the properties of those being as it were sealed in the Idea's of living Creatures are in some sort contrary in the priority of the efficient tree as the Seals of Passions do end in to this Idea And so the fruits of this tree do act no more by way of contrary Passions but from the force of a received and inbred seminal Character wherein every thing acteth according to the Talent received even as it is in it self but not by reason of a repugnant duality or disagreeing contrariety Therefore the blood wherein is the seminal product and the effecter of the fearful meekness doth mortifie the poyson which is bred from a poysonous wrothfulness For I have noted in things loves hatreds terrors and the seminal products seals Idea's and characters of these Whence I have found out the immediate Causes of many hidden Remedies But I have interpreted them to be found out and suggested by me with the truth of possible and appearing consequences These things I have spoken concerning occult or hidden properties out of the Dream that we may cease to be occult Philosophers and may follow the manifest Doctrine of the more tractable ones Now I will prosecute my Dream I perceived I say that Smallage Asparagus and whatsoever things are taken to open Obstructions have indeed a Salt of a specifical savour the which being with their middle life made the Cream of the Stomack remaineth surviving although enfeebled yet that they do obtain weak Remedies for the opening of Obstructions For truly those things which do keep the Savour of their own concrete Body under the ferment of the Stomack as Onion Garlick Mace Turpentine Asparagus c. Those I perceived even to slide along with the Superfluities because they wax soure with their specifical Savour and then do take under the Gawl the nature of a Salt and at length under the dungy ferment of the Reines do put on a Urine-provoking or diuretical faculty But whose specifical Savours do putrifie by continuance and perish with the sourness of the Cream those things I perceived to be indifferent meats but whose Savours do not plainly yeild themselves into the sourness of the Cream and do after some sort remain in their mediocrity for the Cream if it should alike on every side receive a ferment and wax soure it should easily be sharper than Vinegar those things indeed-do through the force of the Gawl easily perish in the Meseraick Veines that together with a third or mumial ferment they may be changed into Venal Blood Therefore I perceived those to reach forth feeble aides for dissolving or opening of Obstructions At length I perceived that all simple Salts of the Sea Sal gemmae Fountaines Salt Peter c. as such do depart through the Urine and Intestines and in the mean time resolve the filths or dregs in those passages and render the expulsive faculty mindful of its duty But I perceive that Salts which carry a Mineral fruit in them are Strangers to our Nature and therefore are scarce to be inwardly admitted But Salts which are a part of the composed Body as Lixivium's and Alkalies I perceived to be deprived of Seminal Virtues and to have onely an abstersive or cleansing Soapie or resolving property unless they are volatile wherein I perceived the radical Beginnings and seminal Balsams of the concrete Body to be I perceived I say that these are easily transchanged into a new fruit because they do associate themselves with and act in all things according to their inbred endowments In the next place I have perceived the corrosive spirits of Minerals to differ far from themselves being crude to resolve the Excrements adhering to the sides of the first Vessels Yet not to be altogether destitute of Dammages by reason of an occult infection of Arsenick admixed with them from their original Therefore I perceived that occult properties as they call them being seminally traduced into the Archeus by the generater or efficient do unfold the presence of their Object and a sympathetical knowledge as they are immediately entertained in the bosom of the Formes Some to wit by a motive local Blas as the Load-stone Amber Gummes Lacca the herb Turne-sole Diamond for this also even as Carabe or Amber doth attract chaffes c. do bewray themselves but other things are terminated into an alteration as poysons likewise laxatives medicines tied about the Head or Body Antidotes c. Laxatives I have peculiarly perceived to operate onely by reason of a poyson lurking within them which being once admitted inwardly nigh the entrance whatsoever they touch they do ferment do afterwards resolve the things fermented and for that very cause do putrifie the things resolved I perceived therefore that Laxatives do putrifie the vital juyces but seldom the excrements the occasional causes of Diseases For seeing they are Poysons in respect of us and not of excrements hence they rise up rather against us than against Diseases And most speedily indeed do putrifie the more crude juyce or the not yet vital blood of the Veines or the yesterdays Cream But because they scarce suppress the excrements neither do these in like manner obey them seeing every action or Blas in us doth proceed from the Spirit which maketh the assault whereof excrements are deprived hence no Physitian dareth by taking Laxatives to promise a cure But true Solutives do neither cause Putrifaction nor selectively draw forth feigned Humours neither therefore do they resolve our vitial parts or things and the which Solutives I have perceived to bewray themselves by a three fold Sign First That they draw nothing from a healthy Body neither do they move after or weaken that Body Secondly That they do not fetch any thing forth but what is offensive and therefore they do not aggravate but ease of the burden and presently
Ingredients of the Fountains of the Spaw What the Vitriol of Mars may be 4. Coagulation is never made without Dissolution nor this without that 5. Bodies do not act into each other 6. Between an Action there is the Odour of a dissolving Spirit 7. The dissolving Spirit is Coagulated 8. Why a vein of Iron is Invisible in the Waters 9. Why Waters do smell of Sulphur 10. Why Sharpnesse perisheth in the Waters and when 11. That which is manifest becomes hidden and that which is hidden is made manifest 12. Why not the Iron but the Vein may be said to be in Being 13. The Salt of Fountains doth not grow in the vein of Iron 14. Why one Fountain is stronger than another 15. The difference of Things contained in Fountains 16. Why the Fountain Savenirius is not translated elsewhere 17. Why the Water of Savenirius is the Lighter 18. The Spirit of Salt doth for some time operate upon a Vein VVRiters do with one accord affirm Water to be the continent of the Fountains of the Spaw But we differ from them only in their Original because it is that which brings no small moment unto the Nobility of the same But in respect of the thing contained in the Waters they far disagree from us For indeed they affirm that Vitriol is in the Water of the Spaw and that Calchitis or red Vitriol Mysy Sory Melantera or Blacking Salt Nitre that Nitre I say hath been found to be in them by the examination of Distilling which elsewhere they never saw because they testifie it is that which since the Age of Hippocrates had failed from thence Bitumen or a liquid Amber the pit Coal Alume Bole Oker Red-lead the Mother of Iron the Vein of Iron Iron Aerugo or Verdigrease burnt Chalcanthum Burnt Alume also the Flour of Brass and Sulphur have therein discovered themselves These things I say we read to be attributed by Authors unto the Fountain of the Spaw under their Mistris Uncertainty and so they doubting unto what Captain they may commit so great an Army do conclude that there are some Fountains in which thou mayest most difficulty discern an eminent Subterraneous Matter Elsewhere in the Fountains of the Spaw that a Heat of Vitriol is tempered with the Cold of Red-lead and Brass In another place that the Fountains of the Spaw are actually cold and moist but in Power or Virtue which one Physitians do examine to be hot and dry and therefore especially because they extinguish Thirst At length they say that there is the Faculty of Iron Sulphur Vitriol and of other mineral Things in these Fountains yet an uncertain Proportion of the first Qualities remaining whether thou dost consider the Variety of subterraneous Things or the various Disposition of the Drinkers And I also read that that is to be noted That the Fountain Savonirius puts on it rather the Virtues of mineral Things than their Substance that is Faculties above without or not substantial ones For elsewhere they say that Fountains wax sharp by Vitriol alone and that Vitriol is of a most sharp Savour but in another place with Diascorides they find in Vitriol more of an ungrateful and earthy astriction than of a sharpness Lastly even as nought but the extream torture of the Fires doth allure forth a most sharpe Oyl out of Vitriol to wit a hungry and sulphurous Salt elevating the brassy Spirits So from hence they suppose Fountains to wax sharp and not otherwise to wit that such an Heat in the Earth doth stir up the sharp Spirits of Vitriol unto the Superficies of the Earth which being there constrained by Cold and changed into a sharp Matter are co-mixed with the neighbouring Fountain Which Position many Anguishes do accompany First Because there is no such voluntary Distillation in the Universe And then because at least the inward parts of the Earth according to Hippocrates are Cold in Summer to wit when the Water of the Spaw is at best Thirdly Because the Spirit of Vitriol cannot but gnaw the Earth or Rockie-stones which it toucheth and therefore put of all sharpness which is vainly dedicated to Fountains Fourthly Because in Summer the coldness of the Earth is not in its Superficies only because it is more in condensing the Spirits than the more inward Parts from whence they imagine the Spirits to be chased through the force of heat Fifthly Because the Spirits of Vitriol being immingled with the Water although negligently locked up do neither lay aside their sharpness nor are they tinged with a ruddie colour the which notwithstanding is altogether social unto Fountainous Waters Hitherto the Opinion of others hath led me aside I will confess my Blindness I at sometime seriously distilled Savenirius and Pouhontius and indeed I found not so great a Catalogue of Minerals yea not any thing in them besides Fountain-water and the Vitriol of Iron by other Writers before me neglected But the Vitriol of Mars consisteth of the hungry Salt of embryonated Sulphur and of the Vein of Iron not of Iron which Vein the hungry Salt being as yet volatile hath by licking corroded In which Act of corroding there is made a certain kind of Dissolution of the Vein it self and a coagulation or fixation of the volatile Salt The Salt I say as long as it is volatile that is apt by being pressed by the Fire to fly away is reckoned among Spirits But Bodies do not corrode Bodies as such neither do fixed things act on or into each other but only as one of them is volatile that is a Spirit whether it be grown together or liquid In the next place in all solution as may be seen in the activity of Aqua Fortis distilled Vinegar c. Some Exhalations are stirred up being before at quiet which as they are wild ones they do not again obey coagulation therefore the Waters do of necessity fly away or being restrained do burst the Vessels But besides that also is afterwards to be noted that how much of the Spirits hath compleated the solution of the Body so much also it hath assumed a corporality in the solved Body From hence therefore a reason plainly appeareth why the Waters of the Spaw in so great a clearness or perspicuity do hide in them the dark Body of the Vein of Iron Next why in the activity of an hungry Salt they do cast a smell of Sulphur notwithstanding the corporal Sulphur be absent At length it is also easie to be seen why the Waters about the end of their activity for that speediness of solution doth continue a longer or shorter time in diverse Fountains do loose their Sharpness and why the Vein being before transparent doth then appear ruddy To wit the Spirits being now partly chased away or the same being weakened and coagulated at the end of Activity the imbibed Vein settles and is manifested which before had remained hidden the Waters in the meantime recovering their natural or proper Simplicity Furthermore it is not
Ointment is called Sympathetical another Magnetical 3. What Mummy is 4. Phylosophy is immediately reproved by Reasons onely 5. The difference of Law and Phylosophy 6. From an ignorance of the Cause Magnatism is accounted a Devil 7. Who may be the Interpreters of Nature 8. Why Alchymists onely can Interpret Nature 9. He is proud who from an ignorance of the Cause believes a thing to be of the Devil 10. Who are the Devils flatterers 11. Magnetism is no new Invention 12. The Armary or Weapon-unguent 13. The intent aim remedies or ingredients and manner in the Ointment are good 14. Why the Unguent is not unlawful 15. Why it is not Superstitious 16. What Superstition is 17. Why the manner of the Unguent being unknown to the censurer can nothing disprove it 18. What Magnetism is 19. Some Effects of the Load-stone 20. The Magnetical Cure of incurable Diseases is perfect 21. Milk being burned dries up the Dugs 22. Vitriol dies through Magnetism or Attraction 23. Mummy operates from Italy even to Bruxels 24. The Carline Thistle under the shade draws wonderfully 25. Likewise the same Disease in number changeth its Subjects 26. That from Magnetism Flowers are followers of the Sun 27. Mummies which are Philtrous or pertaining to Love how they are attractive 28. That the Arcanum or secret of the Blood is the Load-stone of Alchymists 29. Herbs why and after what sort they are Attractive 30. Asarabacca and the Elder are Magnetical 31. An implicite compact or covenant is the Anchor of the Ignorant 32. Sympathy presupposeth a sense or feeling 33. The Mummy of a Dead Brother being long since impressed on a seat is as yet attractive 43. The Saphire is an imitator of the Unguent in Magnetism 35. The Saphire by touching of one Carbuncle cures others 36. Why the Prelates of the Church wear skie-coloured Rings 37. Man hath his Load-stone 38. An Amulet for the Plague 39. It is of necessity that the same accident should pass from subject into subject 40. Magnetism is an heavenly quality 41. A Thief Robber or Murderer and an honest Man or Woman afford the same Mosse of their dead skull 42. From whence and what the seed of that Mosse is 43. The fruit of the Air. 44. That Usnea or Mosse is a fruit of Fire 45. In that Mosse also is the Back of the Load-stone the scope being changed 46. God in Miracles follows Nature 47. God approves of the Magnetism of the Unguent by Reliques 48. A supernatural Magnetism proves a natural one 49. A lock of that Mosse being incarnate in the fore-head is a defence against a sword but a Thred or rag of the stole of S. Hubbert against the tooth of a mad Dog 50. A rag being incarnate in the fore-head preserves from the biting of a mad Dog for ones whole life time an impression of blood doth the same in the Zinzilla 51. Pepper degenerates into Ivy. 52. How we must judge of Persons 53. Paracelsus the Monarch of Secrets 54. Every thing hath its own particular Heaven 55. From whence inclination is 56. From whence a Disease is Astral in us 57. Whence sick persons have a fore-feeling of the stormes of the times 58. What may cause the flowing and ebbing in the Sea 59. Whence Windes are stirred up 60. The Heaven doth not cause but pronounce things to come 61. The Being of every seed hath the firmament and virtue of its own influence 62. The Vine not the Heaven disturbs Wines 63. Antimony observes an influence 64. The Load-stone directs its self but is not drawn 65. Glass is Magnetical 66. Rosin is Magnetical 67. What Garlick acteth against the Load-stone and why the same thing also concerning Mercury 68. The virtue or power of operation on an Object at a distance is natural even in sublunary things and it is Magnetical 69. Every Creature liveth in its own mode or after its own manner 70. What the Unguent can draw from a Wound at a distance 71. Every Satanical effect is imperfect 72. Why Satan cannot co-operate with our Unguent 73. What may be called the Will and Imagination of the Flesh and of the outward Man 74. A twofold Extasie 75. The Ecstatical power of the Blood 76. Corruption makes that lurking power manifest 77. The Essences of things do not putrifie 78. The putrefaction of Alchymy to what end it is 79. The Cause of Attraction in the Unguent 80. The heart is drawn by the treasure magnetically or after the manner of a Load-stone 81. Necromancy or the Black-Art from whence it is 82. What Man is as a living Creature and what Man is as being the Image of God 83. After what manner the Eagle is allured by the Magnetisme of a dead Carcase 84. How the venal Bloud is drawn in the Unguent unto its own treasure Why Eagles are allured to a dead Carcase magnetically 85. A natural feeling or perceivance and an animal feeling do differ 86. The Effects of Witches are wicked ones 87. The power of a Witch is natural and of what sort that power may be 88. Where the Magical power in man is seated 89. Whether man bears command over all other Bodies 90. Why a man may act per nutum or by his beck or pleasure 91. What the Magical faculty may be 92. The Magical power lyes hid in man after divers manners 93. The inward man is the same with the outward fundamentally but materially diverse 94. What the vital Spirit its knowledge and gift is 95. In a Carcase which dies of its own accord there is no implanted Spirit 96. The divining of Spirits according to Physitians 97. The Soul acts in the Body onely per nutum Magically 98. The Soul acts in the Body onely by a drowsie beck but out of the Body by an excited beck The knowledge of the Apple hinders Science Magical or Wise Knowledge 99. The beginning of the Cabal is drawn from God in Dreams 100. The defect of Understanding is in the outward man 101. What Satan can do in Witches 102. What are the true works of Satan alone 103. Sin hath withdrawn the endowments of Grace and hath obscured the gifts of Nature 104. Whither the pious exercises of Catholicks tend 105. The most powerful effect of the Cabal 106. There are two subjects of any kind of things 107. Man acts as well by his Spirit as by his Body 108. What kind of ray or beam is sent from a Witch into a bruit 109. How a Witch may be bewrayed 110. How a Witch may be bound up in the heart of a Horse 111. The Intention depraves or vitiates a good Work 112. The Seminal virtue is natural Magick 113. Why blood issues out of the dead Carcase when the Murtherer is present 114. Why the Plague is frequent in Sieges 115. Works of Mercy are to be exercised at least in respect of avoiding the Plague 116. Plagues from Revenge and execration are detestable 117. Why Bodies were to be removed from the Gibbet 118. Why Excrements
in the Soul indeed more vigorous but in the Flesh and Blood far more remiss The vital Spirit in the Flesh and Blood performes the office of the Soul that is it is that same Spirit in the outward man which in the seed formes the whole figure that magnificent Structure and perfect delineation of Man and which hath known the ends of things to be done because it contains them and the which as President accompanies the now framed Young even unto the period of its Life and the which although it depart therewith some smatch or small quantity at least thereof remains in a Carcass slain by violence being as it were most exactly co-fermented with the same But from a dead Carcass that was extinct of its own accord and from nature failing as well the implanted as inflowing Spirit passed forth at once For which reason Physitians divide this Spirit into the implanted or Mumial and inflowing or acquired Spirit which departs to wit with the former Life And this influxing Spirit they afterwards sub-divide into the natural vital and animal Spirit But we likewise do here comprehend them all at once in one single Word The soul therefore being wholly a Spirit could never move or stir up the vital Spirit being indeed corporeal much less flesh and bones unless a certain natural power yet Magical and Spiritual did descend from the Soul into the Spirit and Body After what sort I pray could the corporeal Spirit obey the commands of the Soul unless there should be a command from her for moving of the Spirit and afterwards the Body But against this Magical motive faculty thou wilt forthwith Object That that power is limited within her composed Body and her own natural Inn Therefore although we call this Soul a Magitianess yet it shall be only a wresting and abuse of the Name for truly the true and superstitious Magick draws not its foundation from the Soul Seeing this same Soul is not able to move alter or excite any thing out of its own Body I Answer That this Power and that natural Magick of the Soul which she exerciseth out of her self by virtue of the Image of God doth now lye hid as obscure in Man and as it were lay asleep since the Fall or corruption of Adam and stands in need of stirring up all which particulars we shall anon in their proper place prove which same power how drowsie and as it were drunk soever it otherwise remains daily in us yet it is sufficient to perform its offices in its own Body Therefore the knowledge and power Magical and that faculty in Man which acteth only per nutum sleeps since the knowledge of the Apple was eaten and as long as this knowledge which is of the flesh and blood outward man and darkness flourisheth the more noble Magical power is trampled under foot But because in sleep the whole knowledge of the Apple doth sometimes sleep Hence also it is that our dreams are sometimes Prophetical and God himself is thereofre the nearer unto Man in Dreams through that effect To wit when as the more inward Magick of the Soul not being now interrupted by the knowledge of the Apple doth even on every side diffuse it self in Understanding to wit even as when it sinks it self into the inferiour Powers thereof it safely leads those that walk in their sleep by moving or conducting them whither those that were awake could not climb Therefore the chief Rabbies of the Cabal affirm that it was learnt or conceived in time of sleep to wit when the knowledge of the Apple was consopited or lull'd asleep The intellectual act of the Soul is alwayes clear and unshaken and after some sort perpetual yet as long as the principal agent hath not transferred its power so far as the limits of sense that kind of action is not yet propagated throughout the whole man For we who are only conversant with the virtue or faculty of thinking or of the senses and with our carnal intelligence are perpetually drawn away Alas for grief by the same from the more superiour and Magical Science or Knowledge and are retained in the shadow of Knowledge rather than in the Light of Truth For neither do we the Inhabitants of darkness observe that we do understand but when there is made a certain mutual traduction or passing over of faculties and till as it were the angles or corners of actions being prorogued or propagated by divers Agents are folded together about the middle Satan therefore stirs up this Magical power otherwise sleeping and hindred by the knowledge of the more outward man in his bond-slaves and the same readily serves them in stead of a sword in the hand of a potent Adversary that is the Witch Neither doth Satan contribute any thing to the murtherer at all besides an exciting of the said drowsie power and consent of the Will which is for the most part compelled in Witches by reason of which two contributions the mocking Scurre as if the whole office or performance were due to himself requires by a compact a continual firm and irrevocable submissive engagement a perpetual homage and devout worshipping of himself if also nothing more When as otherwise that kind of power was freely conferred by God the workman being plainly natural to Man For indeed juggling Impostures bewitchings by the emission of the sight or eyes and how falsely soever disguises of Witches may appear and such like delusive acts they are only from Satan and are his proper acts For therefore his works are onely ridiculous ones and false apparitions because our merciful God suffers not the same miscreant to have any longer power but keeps him bound When as otherwise the Witch displaies real and wicked acts from her own natural faculty For truly through sin not the gifts of Nature but those of Grace were obliterated in Adam And moreover that the same natural gifts although they were not taken away yet that they have remained as it were restrained and benummed with sleep For even as Man from that time became subject to mortality after the manner of his fellow creatures so also were the Heroick or excelling powers in Man obscured which therefore have need of a stirring up and drawing out of darkness For hitherto have contemplations continued prayers watchings fastings and acts of mortifications regard to wit that the drowsiness of the flesh being vanquished men may obtain that nimble active heavenly and ready power toward God and may sweetly confer with him in his presence who importunately desires not to be worshipped but in the Spirit that is in the profundity or bottom of the more inward man Hitherto I say hath the art of the Cabal regard which as it were by sleep shaken off may restore that Natural and Magical power of the Soul I will after the manner of Mathematicians yet further explain my self by Examples and will assume the very works of Witches the which although they are wickedly mischievous and
detestable yet are supported by the same root namely a Magical power without difference as unto good and also unto evil For neither doth it blemish the Majesty of free Will or the Treatise of the same although we now and then discourse of a Thief Robber or Murtherer a Whoremonger an Apostate and Witch Grant therefore that a Witch kills a Horse in an absent Stable there is a certain natural virtue derived from the Spirit of the Witch and not from Satan which can oppress or strangle the vital Spirit of the Horse Suppose thou that there are two subjects of Diseases and Death namely one of these the Body wherein a Disease inhabits And because all Beings act on this Body as that which is the most passive subject the other spiritual Dominion hath been thought to have been from Satan But the other subject is the unperceivable and invisible Spirit which of its own self is able to suffer all Diseases The Spirit suffering the Body also suffers because its action is limited within the Body for the Mind after that it is fast tied to the Body flowes alwayes downwards even as when the palate is pained the tongue continually tends thither but not on the contrary For there are some material Diseases which are tinged onely materially For so manifold is the occasion of Death that there is no other ground from whence we may receive an ability for pride The act therefore of the foregoing touch of the Witch is plainly natural although the stirring up of the virtue or power be made by the help of Satan No less than if a Witch should slay a Horse with a Sword reach'd unto her by Satan that act of the Witch is natural and corporeal even as the other fore-going act is Natural and Spiritual For truly Man naturally consists no lesse of a Spirit than of a Body neither therefore is there any reason why one act may be called the more natural one or why the Body only may be said to act but the Spirit to be idle and to be made altogether destitute at least of such action that is proper to it self as it is the Image of God Yea the vital Spirits in speaking most properly are those which perceive move remember c. but in no wise the Body and dead Carcass it self Every act therefore doth more properly respect its agent than the Body the Inn of the Agent Therefore some certain Spiritual Ray departs from the Witch into the Man or bruit Beast which she determineth to kill According to that Maxim That there is no Action made unless there be a due approximation or most near approach of the Agent to the Patient and a mutual coupâ—ing of their Virtues whether the same approximation be made Corporally or also spiritually Which thing is proved to our hand by a visible testimony For if the fresh Heart of a Horse for that is the seat of the vital Spirits slain by a Witch be empaled upon a stick and be roasted on a Broach or broyled on a Gridiron Presently the vital Spirit of the Witch without the interposing of any other mean and from thence the whole Witch her self for truly not the Body but the Spirit alone is sensible suffers cruel torments and pains of the fire The which surely could by no means happen unless there had been made a coupling of the Spirit of the Witch with the Spirit of the Horse For the Horse that was strangled retains a certain Mumial Faculty so I call it whensoever the virtue of the vital Liquor is as yet co-fermented with the Flesh that is the implanted Spirit such as is not found in Bodies dying of their own accord by reason of any sicknesse and any other renting asunder of an inferiour order whereunto the Spirit of the Witch being coupled unto it is a companion Therefore there is made in the fresh Heart a binding up of the Spirit of the Witch before that by a dissolution the Witch her own Spirit return back to her again which Spirit is retained by the Stick or Arrow being thrust into the Heart and through a roasting of both Spirits together from whence by Magnetism it happens that the Witch in the utmost limit or gradual heat of the Fire is sorely tossed or disturbed in her sensitive Spirit That effect is changed from the intention for if Reveng stir up the experimenter then the effect is reprobate But if tryal be made that the Witch may thereby be constrained to bewray her self to be subjected to Judges or the Justice of the Magistrate and that a benefit may be hereby procured to his Neighbour and himself and as by the taking away of so impious blasphemous and hurtful a Vassal of Satan glory to God and the greater peace and rest may arise amongst all Neighbours then certainly the effect cannot be rejected as reprobate We must not think that the whole Spirit of the Witch departeth into the Heart of the Horse for so the Witch her self had departed from the living but that there was a certain univocal or single participation of the vital Spirit and Light even as indeed a Spirit which is the Architect or Master-workman of the whole Man is propagated in the Seed at every turn or act of Generation being sufficient even for many off-springs the Spirit of the Father remaining entire notwithstanding Indeed that Spiritual participation of Light is Magical and a wealthy communication by Virtue of that Word Let Animals and Herbs bring forth Seed and one Seed produceth ten times ten thousand of Seeds of equal Valour or Virtue and as many entire seminal Spirits as Light is kindled or inflamed by Light But what a Magnetical Spirit may properly be and the Entity or Beingness begotten by its Parent the Phantasie I will hereafter more largely write I am now returned unto our Ends proposed Neither is there any ground for any one to think that this rebounding of the Heart into the Witch is a meer Supposition or plainly a superstitious and damnable Juggle and Mockery of Satan seeing she is infallibly discovered by this Sign and is constrained will she nill she to bewray her self openly which is a thing opposite to the intent of Satan as in the second of our suppositions is above sufficiently shewn for the Effect is perpetual never deceiving having its Foundation in reason and the spiritual Nature but not in the least supported by Superstitions Hath not likewise a dead Carcass also that was murdered be-bloodied it self before the Judges or Coroner and his Inquest when the Murderer was present and hath oft-times procured a certain Judgment of his Offence Although before the Blood had already stood restrained Indeed in the Man dying by reason of his Wound the Inferiour Virtues which are Mumial for those are unbridled ones and are not in our Power have imprinted on themselves a Footstep of taking revenge Hence it is that the Murderer being present the Blood of the Veins boiles up and flowes
choyce form But because thou hast done thy will which alone is good I therefore ascribe unto thee all the Glory who hast in this Age disclosed this knowledge by the basest and little Ones of this World For that is according to thy accustomed manner and that for the greater Glory of thy Name For I knew that the one onely sluggishnesse of those who being deceived by the sweetnesse of the Odour of Gain have despised to distill a matter so stinking and base hath hindred both the Antient and Modern Physitians For Wisdom despiseth those who have refused perfectly to learn the matter whereof Dispositions Contents Properties Progress and Significations of the Urine by the Fire For neither have they lesse stumbled in the matter Content and Judgements of Urines than hitherto they have done in the stonifying of the same wherefore both the diagnostical or discernable Knowledge and also the judicial fore-knowledge of urines hath remained hidden even as we have from a Foundiation demonstrated in our Vronoscopia or Inspection of the Vrine the which I heartily wish that the more fervent Judgements would hereafter practise For truly I prepare my self for my Grave under hope that my Labours will not be unprofitable for humane miseries I will now proceed to reckon up my blockishnesses and the wearinesses of experiences For first of all from Duelech being dissected and distilled all alone by himself and also from the shavings of the Urinal Thirdly also from the urine being distilled unto the thicknesse of an Ecligma or Lohoch altogether the same Oyl and the same Crystals of liquid dung do arise For from Duelech there is left an earthy Lee being black brickle and burnt no longer rocky and scarce reserving any thing of the more fixed salt of urine Because the volatile Spirit is wholly throughout its whole changed into Duelech and at length into an earth with other parts of the composition being adjoyned unto it Verily for a sure signe that the fixed salt of Urine hath not the faculty of an active Runnet but is onely coagulated passively Furthermore That earth that was left of the distilled Duelech never lately descended unto the Bladder in the shew of a Pouder or Clay but it was a Liquor while it was in the urine which there afterwards thus hardened by the spirit of the urine For I long meditated that an Earth or Pouder however most Artificially it should be connexed to the spirit of Urine yet it would never grow together into Duelech and by consequence that the invention of Tartar for Duelech was also vaine For truly I had already beheld in the Glass that Duelech was made of the same spirits to wit distilled and clear Liquors matter and efficient cause whereof it ariseth in us Therefore I concluded from my proofes now mechanically made That if the urine together with its spirit of salt hath in it the spirit of a volatile Earth Duelech shall of necessity be generated from those two unlesse by the Dross which in the Book of Fevers I call the liquid Dung the salt of the urine be filled or glutted and for that cause be disturbed from coagulating For I have often observed that any one that had the stone being afterwards afflicted with the Jaundice hath beene free from the stone as long as the Jaundice bare sway And so Neither hath it been undeservedly asserted by me in the Treatise of Fevers that the aforesaid Dross being a stranger to Urines is mixed with them as it were a profitable Excrement But the Sands are corned or grainified as well in us as in Urinals at the very moment of Corning and being once Corned they also obtain the ultimate hardnesse of themselves but not that they are more and more hardened by degrees Therefore it is fabulous whatsoever the Schooles do devise concerning the stone being confirmed and not yet confirmed for the excuses of their confirmed ignorance and sloath For the sand that is newly voided from us or wiped off from Urinals is as hard as it will be for ten yeares after Let the same Judgement be also of Duelech I have also said above that unlesse the sand which is affixed to the Urinal or Chamberpot were coagulated in an instant it had wholly fallen headlong to the bottome neither would it be fastened to the sides and so proportionably distinct An heretical Preacher nigh Barclay in England being safe and sound in health in the Year 1629. striving after Dinner to draw a Book unto him from a high place was sorely smitten with a great weight and pain in the bottome of his belly and four dayes after he by certaine signes knew that he was burthened with the stone And eight dayes after that he dyed at London under the Knife of the Stone-Cutter But that stone weighed an English pound and two drammes beside Neither do I remember that ever I saw the like stone But an hundred pounds at Antwerp weigh at London 104. But Paracelsus admiring this appearance of the stone least a fiction should be wanting to his Microcosm calls it the stone of Thunder and thinks that it grew together in falling But that errour of his is manifold 1. For there is no place granted for its falling For truly the Bladder containes urine or no urine if no urine it is folded together like a wet Towel But if it be extended by urine seeing this is beneath Duelech cannot be formed out of the urine or without urine that it should be made without matter and fall downwards into the urine that it may be made in falling 2. He erres believing that the stone which is cast down in Thunder is generated by ordinary and wonted Causes but not by monstrous ones Otherwise if the matter that is natural to Thunder should be naturally coagulated in an instant such stones ought to be accustomed to all particular Thunders Neither should there be a Cause why a small stone of about three pound weight should pierce into the earth unto the depth of nine foot by its onely and naked fall unless it were thrust down with a stronger force even as concerning an irregular Meteor elsewhere 3. In the next place Duelech bewraying it self by a sudden Tyrannie proves that its generation is in a moment For nothing hinders but that he adhered to the Bladder with his foot and that being broken off through the steepnesse of his passage he fell down into the widenesse of the Bladder 4. Whatsoever is at any time condensed into a true Duelech whether it be a Central Kernel descending from the Kidney or in the next place growing in manner of a Bark every Generation thereof is alwayes made in an instant For indeed I have learned by my Mechanical Operations that Duelech and what quantity there is in him is wholly constituted of meer volatile Beings yet not that of a urine of three or four ounces of which quantity that of him that made water might be a Duelech of one pound could be generated Moreover
the aforesaid poyson and also confound or dissolve the ice of the foregoing winter with a new Spring And although that poyson be fermental in respect of the poyson and therefore also from a formal quantity of it self it endeavours to creep into all places afterwards yet it is not apt as to be co-fermented equally with the spirit by reason of the force and fighting nobleness of the Subject into which it is received and the drowsie sluggishness of its icie disposition For such is the difference in contagious things that the poysons of some things do voluntarily or by art depart and are separated from and forsake the bodies infected by them But of others that there is no voluntary division to be hoped for for the ice of the Leprousie doth the rather besiege the more outward parts because it is an icie malady and is thrust forth abroad by the in-bred heat for therefore it more defiles the Standers by towards their outward parts than their more inward bowels which are co-touching with them in the root in the unity of life But no Physitian ever cured the Leprosie which obtained not the Liquor Alkahest The which since it is of a most tedious preparation none although skilful in art shall come unto the obtainment thereof whom the most High shall not by a special gift conduct thither For he must needs be chosen and endowed by a particular priviledge if he ought to obtain that Medium or Mean To wit whereby as well sensitive as unsensitive sublunary bodies are equally pierced even into the seminal and intrinsecal root of their first Being therefore also it subdueth and changeth all things under it without a re-acting of the Patient and impoverishing of the Agent For otherwise it is vain whatsoever hope the Leprosie shall perswade it self of from elsewhere Therefore in times past the curing of those that had the Leprosie was granted for a sign unto the Messias alone My first born daughter being now five years old became leprous and that more and more and at length wan Ulcers and horny white scales grew throughout her whole body But then the image of the Virgin Lady newly shewed it self by many Miracles in our City famous for the Hospital of St. James The Girle therefore being now seven years of age desired to go to the place and the Grandmother with her Nephew hasten thither and she returns after an hour sound and forthwith the scales fall off Presently after a year the same Leprosie suddenly returned And I confessed my self guilty that I had concealed the honour of the Lady Virgin Therefore my little daughter returnes with her Grandmother unto the sacred Image and she again returned healed and so afterwards remained But I fearing the return of the Leprosie divulged the Miracle and by a publick Writing confessed the favour and clemency of God unto whom be all praise and glory with the sanctifying of his name for ever I have already said that sensation or the act of feeling according to the mind of Hippocrates doth as well effectively as susceptively or receivingly consist in the Animal spirit But because all such spirit is dead and a dead Carcass unless it be illustrated from the life it self And because life it self in that spirit is not proper unto it and unseparable from it but life is from the vital or animal spirit I now confound them both in name it being distinct in the whole subject the which elsewhere more manifestly concerning long life therefore first of all it is manifest that that vital spirit doth not immediately feel but that it is the very life it self which doth the more nearly and immediately feel and grieve or pain in that spirit For indeed I have demonstrated in the Treatise Concerning the Forms of Things that the life or form of things is a certain light a special Creature shining in its own Inne throughout all the Guardians of the parts yet that it is not a substance nor an accident however by reason of the so great Novelty of the thing the School of the Peripateticks may crack Which Paradox I have demonstrated by Mathematical demonstration and Mechanically in the book of the Elements And so I here assume it as being elsewhere sufficiently proved I will therefore speak much more nearly than Hipprocrates concerning Sensation and Sense That if Sensation or the act of Feeling were in times past said to be made with a passion of the body wherein the spirit making the assault receiveth the impression of the thing to be felt and the which therefore is abusively called the very Sensible Species it self We now understand that this impression is in one only moment and in the same point â—sinuated into the life existing in it To wit under which Insinuation Application and Suiting Sensation doth then first arise being made in the life it self and by the life Of which life indeed Sense it self is an unseparable property And seeing Life is not of a body nor proper to a body nor lastly of the Off-spring of corporeal properties but is a light comming into it by the gift of the Creator beyond the condition of the Elements and Heavens Hence also Sensation is not of bodies nor of matter nor of a solution of the Con-tinual c. But plainly a vital property proceeding from the very trunk of life As also it is not sufficient that there be an Eye a Mean a vital Spirit that Seeing may be made but moreover there is required an application of the visual spirit unto the Life and therefore the effect of seeing however altogether ordinary doth exceed the whole Elementary nature because it contains the image and co-resemblance of the Life it self for that Seeing Tasting Smelling Touching c. are the immediate effects of the Life sporting it self or playing thorow its own Organs For in all sense it must needs be that the allurements of the spirits and the Species of things perceived are fitted immediately to the life if sensible acts do at any time happen But indeed in a matter so difficult and so far separated from the common Doctrine grant me Reader that I may as yet talk more nearly with thee For thou hast perceived that it is not sufficient unto Sense and Sensation to have have said that the Brain and likewise the Sinew is the immediate Organ of Sense nor also that it is enough to have implored for this purpose the inflowing spirit yea or the spirit it self implanted in the parts as it is cherished from the influxing vertue of the brain or nerves unless unto all these the life shall concurre For Sensation it self is of so great a weight that it easily exceeds the compass of all Sublunary things together with the whole power of the Heavens and Elements Therefore since thou hast already perceived that I will speak further For what things I have now spoken concerning the Life I have shewen in my whole book Of long Life whereunto I dismiss thee for speedy
recourse how variously the Life glistens in nature to wit as it is seminally in the very vital spirits but as it were fountainously in the sensitive soul it self Therefore in speaking properly of Sense and Sensation the Sensitive Soul it self is the primary and also the immediate Being which acteth all Sensations and in acting undergoes them in it self And therefore the spirit of the Brain is only the immediated Organ but the life is the Organ or Medium whereby the Sensitive Soul perceiveth external Objects rushing on it For Sensation is not immediately in the thing contained nor in the things containing nor also in the spirit diffused through the Sinews into the vital parts Because that spirit which makes the assault differs from the Sensitive Soul no otherwise than as a fat material smoak doth from the flame by which it is enflamed But the Soul the immortal Mind is wholly unpassable by humane conceptions as it is the Image of the very incomprehensible God himself But the Sensitive Soul although it begins in nature from an occasional seed that is dispositively yet seeing it is the nearest Image of that Image it is also after the manner of men unknown and altogether scanty For therefore indeed neither can it be defined by its causes but only is described by an absurb or incongruous Circle of reflexions own its own actions and properties To wit that the Sensitive Soul is a formal light whereunto the properties of a Sensitive life do chiefly agree but in man that it is the Prop and Inn of the immortal Soul and its immediate bond with other created corporeal Bodies besides it self Therefore there is as yet a more remote aspect or beholding of the Soul as being related to the life Seeing life and the Soul are distinct things as it were the abstract and the Concrete or rather as the property of a Being and a Being it self This same Soul therefore through life perceiveth in the animal Spirits and seeth immediately in the Optick or visual spirit which inhabits in the apple of the eye the visible Species conceived For the Optick Spirit there is a transprrent glass the light whereof is the very Sensitive Soul it self present in the same place being the Seat and Chamber-maide of the immortal mind Therefore there is no need of a recourse of the received Species that are to be perceived thorow the Sinews to the Brain But the Soul being immediately present and bestowing all vertue from it self upon the visual Spirit she her self sees and discerns But the Brain is only the Shop and Cup of those spirits wherefore the sinews do not serve for the conveighing of the Specie's drawn unto the Brain in the act feeling or perceiving But for bedewing of the spirits illustrated in the Brain for the refreshing and confirming of the parts wherein themselves are implanted Neither is there also altogether a like reason of the external Senses with the imaginative power and its Sisters For the sensible Specie's outwardly perceived by the Soul are abstracted by sensibility and then at length as it were of the matter whereof Specie's or shapes are from thence forged into the Image of the thing to be perceived After another manner Sensitive Objects entring from without are conceived after a Concrete or conjoyned manner in the Organs of the senses and therefore they do not only displease but moreover do now also pain But concerning the seat of the Soul it is variously disputed for the Heart and the Brain But I may suppose that the Sensitive Soul is conformable to its own seeds and by a real Act distinguished from the immortal mind the image of the Divinity Yet that the Sensitive Soul which is the carnal old Adamical man and Law of the flesh is not on both sides distinguished from a formal and vital light neither that it sirs immediately in the inflowing Spirit the which indeed is wholly slideable and flowing But the Spirit which increased in the Organs presently after their first constitution although it live in the last life of the seeds yet it doth not as yet truly live in the middle animal life which is the Sensitive life until that a vital light comming upon it shall actually shine The dispositions whereof are indeed gradually premised But notwithstanding they are in one only instant enlightned by the divine goodness of the Creator Even as in the Book of long life For that happens no otherwise than as in the co-rubbing of the flint against the Steel Therefore an undeclarable light is kindled by the Creator in the spirit of the more noble Bowels and first indeed in the heart which light as it attaineth strength by degrees is more powerfully enlarged no otherwise than as the smoak of a lower Candle doth visibly receive the dismissed flame from the upper Candle So that although the Organs are divided in diversity of Offices yet by a mutual conspiracy they readily serve for the necessities and ends prefixed by the Lord the Creator Notwithstanding there is one only Harmony and continued Homogenial Life and Sensitive Soul of all the Bowels and Members which in every one of them receiveth and presently after cloatheth it self with certain limitations or properties which it had prepared for it self by the seeds For as the flame of a Candle is not extended above or without its own Sphear nor perisheth as long as it lives within that Sphear although the smoaky fumes arising from thence being void of flame did fly far away out of that Spheare so likewise the inflowing spirits although they are illustrated by a participation of life are pufft away do wander far and therefore are materially diminished in their Cup or Buttery yea and for this cause the liveliness of a vital Light growes feeble yet nothing of the essence of the Sensitive Soul perisheth because Life is not attained by parts and degrees as neither doth it subsist like accidents but is alwayes life although more or less liveliness may appear in that light For no otherwise than as a fire where it is never so small is as well fire as another that is heightned In like manner also whatsoever exhaleth from the body which before rejoyced in the participation of Life yet looseth life so soon as it departs out of its own limits So also Excrements do not indeed keep Life but a co-participation of the vital spirits Wherefore also from thence the order of the inferiour Harmony slides into disorder according to that saying My spirit shall be diminshed and therefore my dayes shall be shortned Therefore a more immoderate evacuation of corrupt Pus and the like brings sudden death As indeed they do not contain the Soul but only the last seminal life of vital spirits For as concerning the immediate existence of the immortal Mind or Divine Image the matter is as yet in controversie between the Heart and the Brain For I who know that even Quickning is made at the very instant wherein the Sensitive Soul
is present that is while that formal Animal and Sensitive Light is kindled even as elsewhere concerning the Birth of Formes believe also that the immortal mind is present and that it doth wholly sit immediately in the Sensitive Soul as being associated or joyned thereunto Not indeed that it sits in a certain corner bowel prison of the Body or shop of the spirits But I conceive that the mind is throughout the whole Sensitive Soul and that it pierceth this Soul nor that it doth exceed the Sphear thereof as long as it lives and in this respect that it is subject unto many importunities of circumstances But in death the mind is separated because the Sensitive Soul it self departs into nothing as it were the light of a Candle which things surely were here to be fore-tasted of before the explication of Sensation Pain therefore as that which is chiefly to be felt shall open unto us the way For it is a hurtful and sorrowful Sensation or act of feeling conceived in the vital Spirit being by life implanted in the sensitive soul And in speaking most nearly Sense or Feeling is a Possion of the sensitive soul conceived in the spirit of Life For nothing can be glad sorrowful or in pain besides the soul it self And so that Sense seeing it is the first conception of Pain or well-pleasing it is by all means made primarily in the Soul And therefore Sense represents unto me nothing besides that power of the Soul of conceiving and judging passively of external Objects rushing on it Therefore seeing that these Acts do depend on the Soul the whole History whereof is blind unto us it is no wonder that it hath been hitherto nought but carelesly treated by the Schools concerning the Soul and Sensation Because they are those who have skipt over the Enquiries of far more manifest things as untouched yea through sloath they have neglected them by subscribing to the dreams of Heathens In Pain therefore the irrational Sensitive Soul is first or chiefly sorrowful is mad is angry is perplexed doth itch or fear and as it is in the fountainous root of all vital actions it naturally moves and contracts not only the Muscles but also any of the parts unto the tone of its own passions Sense therefore is the action of external Objects that are to be perceived the which while they are conceived in the Soul it self also suffers no less than life its companion than the animal spirit and the rest of the guard But the immortal mind suffers not any of these things in its own substance but only in its Subject Seat Inn to wit the Sensitive Soul Otherwise all voluntary things at once are too invalid so as to be able to affect an immortal Being which is Eternal in its future duration But it is as yet a very small matter that the Sensitive Soul doth suffer by sensible Objects unless it self be made as it were hostile to it self while aâ— impatient it is exorbitant or disorderly For it begins to act while it is provoked and doth suffer by sensible Objects For truly it shakes the vital Spirit and the whole body and at length as prodigal it disperseth the vital furniture and breeds diseases on it self and hastens its own death That even from hence also the Proverb may be verified That none is more hurt than by himself as the Sensitive soul is a meer act And so that it being once spurred up by sensible conceptions for it is wholly irrational brutal wrongful and greedy of desire it leaps over into furies and symptomatically or furiously shakes all things Therefore sensible Objects are the occasions of hurts and diseases But the sensitive Soul well perceiving the same occasions nor being willing to suffer them diversly stirs up its own Ministers and by Idea's imprinted on them estrangeth them from their Scope or Purpose From whence afterwards proceed various seeds and Off-springs of Diseases The Soul therefore undergoes and suffers the aforesaid affects from the Object that is to be felt from whence it being disturbed or tossed by the pricks of Sensations doth act and suffer lastly as being prodigal it in a rage disperseth its own family-order of Administration And while it perceiveth sweet plausible helpful Objects and those things which are grateful unto it self it is not in this its acts of feeling differing from the Judgement whereby it feeleth hurtful corrosive pricking rending brusing Objects not but by accident which is plainly external to the life it self From whence it is easily discerned that Sense is made by the Judgement of the sensitive Soul being brought upon a conceived sensible object it altering at first by it self according to the Sensation conceived and then it conveigheth it further unto another imaginative Judgement which is separated from the sensitive Judgement no otherwise than as Sense and Phantasie or Imagination do disagree in their Faculties but not in their Subject Spare me ye Readers if I attribute all material perturbations and affections immediately to the sensitive soul and to the spirits its guardians but not unto the organs of those For there are some tickling things which by their itching and itch-gumme do stir up laughter and a small leaping in some which in others do not move the least of these For oft-times the Soul is inwardly overclouded with a natural Sensation and is also sadned the Subject thereof being scarce known yea it elsewhere doates And elsewhere the sensitive soul becomes unsensitive as in those that have the Falling Sicknesse for a time but in the Palsey oft-times for Life at leastwise in Organs that are hurt although as yet alive But in many without Sense Judgement and Reason although the animal spirits do issue forth and being diffused into the habit of the body do move and in the mean time do otherwise draw hurtful impressions So the life and that sensitive soul have their own drowsinesse madnesse and trouble within although nothing shake and burden them from without because seeing that in sleep also there is its own foolish Lust or Desire Hunger Thirst Fear Agony and a wondrous dissolute liberty of irrational vain dreams And moreover friendly things are presently changed into mixt neutral or hostile ones as the Archeus which never keeps Holiday or is idle doth of sweet things make bitter and corroding ones For the Soul as I have said conceiveth of sensible things by the means of a Guard and Clients unto whom she her self as present is an an Assistant and by applying those objects unto her self stirs up Sorrow Love Fear c. To wit of which Idea's she sealingly forms the Characters or Impressions in her own Archeus whereby she changeth all things acording to the Image seminally proposed unto her self Which Character being through a bedewing of the Sensitive Soul made partakers of Life and Sense do first cloath the seminal body of the Archeus from whence at length most prompt faculties or abilities for action do spring And there is
readily burnt But let us suppose dead flesh to be first made lukewarm and to be in the same degree of heat no otherwise than if it did live yet it is not therefore easily scorched or burnt nor after the same manner wherein live-flesh is Therefore the aforesaid evasion hath no place Wherefore seeing that from the agent of a single degree of heat divers operations do happen in the same subject of flesh being distinct only in life Therefore it must needs be that the life is the only cause of that diversity which is to say that the life is the proper agent of Sennsation in Sesitive Creatures and that the life is such a cause which besides hath a power of making burnings or scorchings in live bodies and in the matter of Medicine yea also of resisting or not Wherefore I find Life to be the first or chief and immediate Efficient of Sense and pain For truly the force of fire being received and introduced into a dead Carcase is not to be felt yea neither properly is it a Scorching or burning one such as is in live bodies but rather a roasting and parching one For in live bodies the liquor of flesh is through an indignation of the Sensitive Soul most speedily converted into a sharp liquor and substantially transchanged the which in dead bodies is not subject unto a vital transmutation And so by boyling and frying it parcheth and roasteth fleshes between the Fibers For flesh that is dead suffers by degrees the which other bodies not sensitive do suffer after a single manner from the fire But in live bodies even boyling water presently produceth bladders and then the solid part is swiftly contâ—acted and burns Therefore that action of scorching or burning in live and and sensitive bodies is made efficiently by the Life it self but by the fire effectively by way of an active occasional and external mean To wit the life it self feeling the rigour of the fire sharpens its own liquor and transchangeth it into a bladdering one and afterwards into an Escharrotick liquor And as much indeed as is snatched by the fire so much afterwards is by a disposition that is left corrupted because it is dead But because of sensible things known by Sense touching is the chief Judge therefore a demonstration hath scarce place and the history and root of pain by its causes hath hitherto remained neglected Therefore I will repeat some things which in so great a Paradox I wrote before in a more contracted speech Wherefore for the searching into the proper agent in pain I have considered that Frogwort Smallage Scarwort c. do not embladder in a dead Carcase yet they embladder live flesh I judged therefore that in the very sensitive soul the difference of this act consisted and not primasily in the Scarwort Because it is that which embladders only so far as by a biting more sharp than is meet it thus molests the Sensitive spirits the which that they may mitigate blunt or extinguish the perceived sharpness the soul rageth in them and therefore resolveth the proper vital substance of the members into a corrosive liquor even as elsewhere concerning the Plague wherefore the sensitive Soul it self as it is the immediate sensitive substance so it is the efficiently effective cause of the bladder But the Scarwort which operates nothing in a dead Carcase is the effective occasional external and excitative cause By reason whereof the Schools being astonished have taught that Medicines are wholly sluggish and as it were dead unless they are first prepared by our heat as it were by a Cook and being stirred up are sharpned thereby The which thing surely wants not its own perplexities For they have determined of that very thing as Medicines being assumed or applied should not forthwith display their faculties on us like fire but as they should have need of a certain space of time wherein they might produce their own effects by foregoing dispositions notwithstanding if a space be required that an altetation may made which is the effect of the medicine Surely that not any thing proves the action of a Medicine otherwise necessary to be from our heat that the Medicine may obtain the gift of its own nativity or a liberty of acting the which it obtained safe full and free to it self by Creation But as I have said it operates after another manner yea oft-times a far other thing in live bodies than otherwise in dead or unsensitive ones And so the effects of Medicines are not wrought unless they are first duly applied and afterwards by a more exact appropriation they do imprint their power on us to wit that from thence a disposition may arise which the sensitive soul stirs up by its own judgement and afterwards also unfolds and perfects For the Schools have erred in Medicinal affairs because they have beheld external and occasional causes for principal and vital ones Therefore they have neglected to connex in live bodies and in cures themselves things effected unto their proper efficients by the due journeys of degrees Wherefore be it a foolish thing that Pepper Vinegar c. ought to borrow their activities and gifts received for acting from our heat As if one only heat should be the primary cause of so many-form effects Because in very deed that a thing may act on us it hath no need of another forreign thing out of it self for this purpose but as primarily so it without delay presently uncloaths its faculties by the moments of dispositions if it be duly applyed even as I have demonstrated at large as well concerning the action of Government as in the Treatise that heat doth not digest in sensitive Creatutes But because the sensitive Soul which the Schools shamefully confound with heat applyeth the received faculties and from thence frameth a certain new action proper to it self and wholly vital Therefore the faculties which the Sensitive soul receiveth from the medicine are the effective and occasional causes only and it might if it would pass by and neglect the same The which is manifest in the more strong persons who digest laxative medicines even violent ones without trouble and drink being in vain as if they were foods And likewise in dying persons unto whom indeed there is an application of Medicines but not an appropriation to wit by reason of a neglect and defect of the sensitive power For in the more strong folks an exciting heat is not wanting and yet thâ—re is no effect For otherwise the vertues of a Medicine are presently received and do pâ—oceed by degrees more and more and then those powers being received into the sensitive Soul this sensitive Soul presently behaves it self well or ill toward them If well then it useth its own Objects for the cherishment of their powers or for the vanquishment of that which is hurtful But if amiss now the sensitive life carries it self foolishly furiously angrily vexingly c. And it spreads the seminal Idea's of these
they are opened thou Paracelsus callest Ulcers and distinguishest against wound and thy own self Too fabulously therefore is the heaven defiled with out corruption and is a revenger of these injuries even as also a Notary and wounder of our crimes That was an invention of Heathenism in times past that it might blasphemously extol the heavens and starry Gods into a worship Four Elements also are blasphemously and foolishly brought in by Paracelsus who was wont to laugh at the Relolleous quality of them especially because in the original of our medicine a Quaternary or four-fold number of Elements is taken away as well in the nature of the Universe as in the constitution of mixt bodies For how ignorantly is a Quaternary of Elements suited with the aforesaid Ternary of emunctory places For Paracelsus having obtained Arcanums plainly heroical for the supplanting of diseases and being destitute of medicinal Science descending from the Father of Lights and of his own accord assuming to himself the Title of the Monarch of secrets and from this boldness invading the principality of healing treated of the Plague as it were of an enemy unknown unto him Therefore he ascribeth the Plague sometimes to the heaven at another time to the Sun and sometimes to the elements alone and oft times to Pythonisses or women of a prophecying spirit witches and to spirits as well those infernal as elementary Deasters being for the most part forgetful of the doctrine of his own Paramire where he proposeth plagues of the being of nature of the being of poyson as if any Plague could exist void of poyson or as if some poyson were not natural of the being of the Stars as though the Stars were above nature or without it of the being of witches these he attributes unto Incubi or devils in mens shapes hobgoblins sylphs c. he distinguisheth them also against the being of the Stars least peradventure witches may be the wise men which are said to bear rule over the Stars and of a God-like being and he there forgat his own and an imaginative being the remembrance whereof notwithstanding he ought to have had before the rest unlesse he had rather that an imaginative being cannot cause disease or that it is no where vigorous but in the possession of Witches And moreover as I judge a plague sent from the hand of God to despise the remedies of nature so also if there were any proper unto devils or witches which is not a thing to be believed yet at least it should in no wise owe its original unto the heaven For otherwise if there were a witch Plague it would be far more cruel than accustomed ones are by reason of an external poyson being adjoyned and a readinesse of its acting speedied and enlarged through the wrath of the evil spirit P. Boucher a Minorite Frier in his oriental or Eastern pilgrimages tels as an eye-witnesse That although Egypt be otherwise exceeding subject to the Plague yet that every year before the inundation of Nile a singular dew falls down which they call Elthalim at the coming whereof as many as lay sick of the Plague are readily and universally cured and are preserved as healthy there from by the same dew For if this be true neither hath it been sufficiently searched into by Prince Radzvil yet not any thing can be drawn from thence whereby we may know that the Plague is naturally caused by the heaven since from thence at least it follows that some meteors are healthy but others hurtful to some which none hath hitherto denied For although the Sun the day before the inundation of Nile returns every year almost unto the same place yet the same stars do not return as companions together with him And then that dew is not the off-spring of the heavens or stars nor of a meteorical Blas of the heaven but the day before the inundation of Nile the more high land of Aethiopia being more hot and southern was long since overflown which sends forth a great vapour from it filled with Nitre for the whole water of Nilus is nitrous which vapour is not only resolved into a dew the dew elsewhere weepes Honies Tereniabin or the fatnesse oftwood hony found in good quantity in the summer months with a manna-ie Being and Laudanum being as it were gummy things and among us the May dew daily abounds with a sugary salt and accompanies Nile running but it well washeth the whole aire of Aegypt even by moistening it and refresheth the bodies of the sick not much otherwise than as a shower doth the earth after long driths At leastwise I being admonished by the holy scriptures despise the sooth-sayers of heaven Therefore if the heaven be the cause of a destroying or devouring Plague it ought likewise to be the cause of every other Plague Because the same Being in the Species obtaines the same constitutive causes from which the Species it self recieveth its identity or samelinesse Therefore I constantly deny that a pestilent poyson is bred by the heaven or dismissed from the stars but all Plagues which are not singularly sent from God for a scourge are either endemical ones or proper to a Country or framed by a certain terrour But those which are borrowed as being drawn in from contagion do follow their own seed and ferment But an endemical Plague although it be drawn in from without occasionally yet it is not to be reckoned for the plague unlesse the terrour of our Archeus do first frame a poysonous Idea of sore fear conceived from the endemical Being even as shall by and by be manifested I deny moreover that any Plague is endemical For although the aire may myire the bodies of many unto diverse confusions of putrefaction yet it is in no wise the original cause of a Postilential poyson For as all putrefaction differs from the Plague so in like manner also the poyson of the Plague differs from any corruption that is the daughter of a thereor The which unlesse it be rightly and perfectly known the nature of the Plague also shall not be able to be any way understood and much lesse a radical healing of the same promoted For a conclusion of this Chapter I will adde an argument which is drawn from the bank of rivers For I have seen those who that they might avoyd houses infected with the Plague departed from Antwerp others who fled from the Smalpocks through which two years before they as yet carried about with them a face he potted with the scats thereof which were smitten in the river Scalds it self with the diseases which they presumed they had avoyded and had withdrawn themselves as healthy I remember also that a certain girle was cured by me of the Leprousy at Vilvord who when shew is now accounted to have been whole for the space of seven weeks and returned to Antwerp she presently felt in the River it self the Leprousie to bud again upon her throughout her whole body Who at
that I shall first satisfie thee what can be drawn from the Wound It is to be noted therefore that in a Wound there is made not only a Solution of Continuity or disunion of the part which held together but also that a forreign quality is introduced from whence the lips of the Wound being enraged they by and by swel with heat are apostemized yea and from thence the whole Body is in a conflict through Fevers and a various concourse of Symptoms For so an Egg whose shell is but even slenderly hurt or crackt putrifies whereas otherwise it might be preserved The Magnetism therefore of this Unguent draws that strange disposition out of the Wound from whence its lips being at length overburthened or oppressed by no accident become without pain and being no way hindred suddenly hasten unto a growing together Natures themselves are the Physitianesses of a Wound the Physitian onely the Servant thereof Neither doth the Medicine beget flesh in a Wound it hath enough to do if it shall but remove impediments Which impediments the one onely Armary Unguent or Weapon Salve doth otherwise sufficiently securely and plentifully expel Thou wilt Object That the Weapon Salve ought not rather to allure forth the forementioned strange quality than the natural strength and powers of the Veins and that the Blood seeing it is sound or uncorrupt in the Unguent ought to call to it the Health but not the indisposition of the wounded party even as indeed was written of the Carline Thistle I Answer that there are divers Magnetisms for some attract iron some chaffs and lead some flesh corrupt pus or matter c. but such is the favour of some Magnetisms that they extract onely the Pestilential Air c. Yea if thou shalt couple the effect of curing in our Ointment with thy own Argument thy own Weapon will wound thee For from thence that the Effect of the Unguent is to heal perfectly speedily without pain costs peril and loss of strength hence I say it is manifest that the Magnetical Virtue in the Unguent is from God in a natural way and not from Satan Because if this Satan should be a co-worker of the said Cure which thou affirmest the same Cure would be imperfect together with loss of Strength Weakness Dammage or hazard of Life a difficult Recovery or with a sensibility of some greater inconveniency and relapse of misfortune All which events as they are annexed to Diabolical Cures so they are far absent from the Cure of our Unguent As many as ever have been cured by this Unguent will give in their Testimony for us Satan is never a teller of Truth never a perswader unto Good unless that he may deceive thereby yea neither doth he long continue in the Truth For alwayes if he shall bring any thing of good to any one this Enemy under-mixeth somewhat more of evil therewith And surely he would according to his custome observe the same rule also in this Unguent if he were the Author or Favourer thereof At least-wise this Remedy would then fail when the wounded Person is recalled as it were from the pit of death who otherwise through the mortal contagion of Sin had through his dangerous wound soon poured forth his Life together with his Blood unlesse haply thou shalt say that Satan then takes compassion on us and that he hath now attained to himself a right or jurisdiction over such a wounded person himself leaves it in doubt to wit in curing him by the Magnetical Unguent whom he had rather should perish perhaps because Satan is now in your esteem a strict observer of his Word and Bargaine and no longer wholly a turn-coat fraudulent impostor and lyar Besides we deny the supposition also That the out-chased blood is perfectly sound or uncorrupt but rather that it being now deprived of a common life hath also entred into the beginnings of some degree of corruption onely that it obtains a Mumial Life Hitherto conduceth the putrified and yet Magnetical blood in an Egg. I therefore pass by the absurdity of thy Objection in that it hath been so bold as to wrest the Magnet or Attractive faculty of the Unguent according to thy own pleasure and not to that end for which it was given of God Positive Reasons of Magnetism more nearly brought home unto us by Metaphysical and Magical Science It is now seasonable to discover the immediate cause of Magnetism in the Unguent First of all by the consent of Mystical Divines we divide Man into the external and internal Man assigning to both the powers of a certain Mind or Intelligence For so there doth a Will belong to flesh and blood which may not be either the Will of Man not the Will of God and the heavenly Father also reveales some things unto the more inward Man and some things flesh and blood reveales that is the outward and sensitive or animal Man For how could the service of Idols Envy c. he rightly numbred among the works of the flesh seeing they consist onely in the Imagination if the flesh had not also it s own imagination and elective Will Forthermore that there are miraculous Ecstasies belonging to the more inward man is beyond dispute That there are also Ecstasies in the Animal man by reason of a intense or heightened Imagination is without doubt Yea Martin del Rio an Elder of the society of Jesus in his Magical disquisitions or inquiries brings in a certain young Lad in the City Insulis that was transported with so violent a cogitation of seeing his Mother that through the same burning desire as if being rapt up by an extasie he saw her being many miles absent from thence and returning to himself being mindful of all that he had seen gave also many signes of his true presence with his Mother Many the like Examples daily come to hand the which for brevities sake I omit But that that desire arose from the more outward man to wit from Blood and Sense or Flesh is certain For otherwise the Soul being once disliged or loosed from the Body is never but by a miracle re-united thereunto There is therefore in the Blood a certain ecstatical or transporting power the which if it shall at any time be stirred up by an ardent desire is able to derive or conduct the Spirit of the more outward man even unto some absent object But that power lies hid in the more outward man as it were in potentia or by way of possibility neither is it brought into act unless it be rouzed up by the imgination enflamed by a fervent desire or some art like unto it Moreover when as the Blood is after some sort corrupted then indeed all the Powers thereof which without a fore-going excitation of the Imagination were before in possibility are of their own accord drawn forth into action for through corruption of the grain the seminal virtue otherwise drowsie and barren breaks forth into act Because that
seeing the essences of things and their vital Spirits know not how to putrifie by the dissolution of the inferiour harmony they spring up as surviving afresh For from thence it is that every occult property the compact of their bodies being by fore-going digestions which we call putrefactions now dissolved comes forth free to hand dispatched and manifest for action Therefore when a Wound through the entrance of air hath admitted of an adverse quality from whence the blood forthwith swells with heat or rage in its lips and otherwise becomes mattery it happens that the blood in the Wound freshly made by reason of the said forreign quality doth now enter into the Beginnings of some kind of corruption which blood being also then received on the Weapon or Splinter thereof is besmeared with the Magnetick Unguent the which entrance of corruption mediating the ecstatical power lurking potentially in the blood is brought forth into action which power because it is an exiled returner unto its own body by reason of the hidden extasie hence that blood bears an individual respect unto the blood of its whole body Then indeed the Magnet or attractive faculty is busied in operating in the Unguent and through the mediation of the ecstatical power for so I call it for want of an Etymologie sucks out the hurtful quality from the lips of the Wound and at length through the Mumial Balsamical and attractive virtue attained in the Unguent the Magnetism is perfected Loe thou hast now the positive reason of the Natural Magnetism in the Unguent drawn from Natural Magick whereunto the light of Truth assents saying Where the Treasure is there is the Heart also For if the Treasure be in Heaven then the Heart that is the Spirit of the Internal Man is in God who is the Paradise who alone is Eternal Life But if the treasure be fixed or laid up in frail or mortal things then also the Heart and Spirit of the more external Man is in Fading things Neither is there any cause of bringing in a Mystical sense by taking not the Spirit but the Cogitation and naked Desire for the Heart for that would contain a frivolous thing that wheresoever a Man should place his Treasure in his Thought or Cogitation there his Cogitation would be Also Truth it self doth not interpret the present Text Mystically and also by an Example adjoyned shews a local and real presence of the Eagles with the dead Carcase So also that the Spirit of the Inward Man is locally in the kingdom of God in us which is God himself and that the Heart or Spirit of the animal or outward sensitive man is locally about its Treasure What wonder is it that the astral Spirits of carnal or animal men should as yet after their funerals shew themselves as in a bravery wandring about their buried Treasure whereunto the whole Necromancy or art of Divination by the calling of Spirits of the Antients hath enslaved it self I say therefore that the external Man is an Animal or living creature making use of the reason and will of the Blood But in the mean time not baâ—ely an Animal but moreover the Image of God Logicians therefore may see how defectively they define a man from the power of rational discourse But of these things more elsewhere I will therefore adjoyn the Magnetism of Eagles to Carcases for neither are flying Fowls endowed with such an acute smelling that they can with a mutual consent go from Italy into Affrica unto Carcases For neither is an odour so largely and widely spread for the ample latitude of the interposed Sea hinders it and also a certain Elementary property of consuming it Nor is there any ground that thou shouldest think these Birds do perceive the dead Carcases at so far a distance with their sight especially if those Birds shall lye Southwards behind a Mountain But what need is there to enforce the Magnetism of Fowl by many Arguments since God himself who is the beginning and end of Phylosophy doth expresly determine the same process to be of the Heart and Treasure with these Birds and the Carcase and so interchangeably between these and them For if the Eagles were led to their food the Carcases with the same appetite whereby four-sooted Beasts are brought on to their pastures certainly he had said in one word That living Creatures flock to their Food even as the Heart of a Man to his Treasure which would contain a falshood For neither doth the Heart of Man proceed unto its Treasure that he may be filled therewith as living Creatures do to their Meat And therefore the Comparison of the Heart of Man and of the Eagle lyes not in the end for which they tend or incline to a desire but in the manner of tendency namely that they are allured and carried on by Magnetism really and locally Therefore the Spirit and will of the Blood fetch'd out of the Wound having intruded it self into the Oyntment by the Weapons being anointed therewith do tend towards their Treasure that is the rest of the Blood as yet enjoying the Life of the more inward Man But he saith by a peculiar Testimony that the Eagle is drawn to the Carcass Because she is called thereunto by an implanted and Mumial Spirit of the Carcass but not by the odour of the putrifying Body For indeed that Animal in assimilating appropriates to himself onely this Mumial Spirit For from hence it is said of the Eagle in a peculiar manner My youth shall be renewed as the Eagle For truly the renewing of her youth proceeds from an essential extraction of the Mumial Spirit being well refined by a certain singular digestion proper to that Fowl and not from a bare eating of the flesh of the Carcases otherwise Dogs also and Pies would be renewed which is false Thou wilt say that it is a reason far fetcht in behalf of Magnetism But what wilt thou then infer hereupon If that which thou confessest to be far remote for thy capacity of understanding that shall also with thee be accounted to be fetcht from far Truly the Book of Genesis avoucheth That in the blood of all living Creatures doth their Soul exist For there are in the blood certain vital powers the which as if they were soulified or enlivened do demand revenge from Heaven yea and judicial punishment from earthly Judges on the Murderer which powers seeing they cannot be denyed to inhabit naturally in the blood I see not why they can reject the Magnetism of the blood as accounting it among the ridiculous works of Satan This I will say more to wit that those who walk in their sleep do by no other guide than the Spirit of the blood that is of the outward man walk up and down perform business climbe Walls and mannage things that are otherwise impossible to those that are awake I say by a Magical virtue natural to the more outward man That Saint Ambrose although he were far distant