is made and these veins part even from a common branch but it s so far off from the eyes that we cannot precisely say that they send veins to one another unless it be in consideration of the sympathy which is betwixt them And this is so true that often even he considers not the continuity of the veins in the distribution which he makes since he shews that the Head and the Lungs have a consent with the Spleen although the veins of the Spleen are not united nor continued with those of these parts because its sufficient for the consent he speaks of that these veins should have communication together by some means or other as shall be said hereafter But the more particularly to make the secret and profit of this admirable distribution appear we shall examine some of the Articles for when he teacheth us that of these four pair of veins which issue from the Head there is one which hath two branches which passes from the Temples and descends into the Lungs whence the one passeth from the right side to the left and goes into the Spleen and into the left Rein and the other parts from the left side and goes to the Liver and right Rein and then they end both in the Hemorroid veins Doth he not thereby demonstrate not onely why the opening of the Hemorroids serves to the Nephriticks and to those who have the Plurisie and Peripneunomy but why also their suppression causeth the Dropsie and the Ptisick for although there are other places wherein it seems that the reflux of the blood which they contain might be made yet the consent they have with the Liver and the Lungs is the cause that it is not elsewhere effected And without doubt those branches which descending go from the right to the left and from the left to the right observe the cause which we have so unprofitably sought why those imposthumes which are made from above downwards are not alwayes found on the same side where the Source of the Disease is but sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left although those which are made from below upwards keep still the rectitude of the part wherein the seat of the malady is for without this distribution of veins its impossible to give a reason of all their accidents Without which we should not yet know why the Breast and Genitals have so great a correspondence betwixt them that the Cough ceaseth when they are tumified that the swelling dissipates when the Cough comes and that even the swelling of the veins which happens unto them corrects those defects which render the voice wheazing and shrill To conclude it s the onely secret whereby Natures wayes are discovered in the transport of the humors which she makes from one part to another and to discern those veins which are to be opened in every sickness For although they have all one root although many of them have common branches which equally ought to distribute unto them the blood and humours which they contain yet the correspondence and friendship which is betwixt the parts obligeth Nature to drive them rather through one vein then another and choosing that which is most fit for it she leaves the rest which are neer unto it and have the same origine This evidently appears in the sympathy which we have before urged with such conducing examples for very probably its through the veins and arteries that this secret vertue runs which the Heart and Liver communicates to some of the fingers whilst the rest of those which are of the Hand are not therein employed and although they issue out of the same branch yet there is but one which bears this vertue from the heart and another that of the Liver otherwise there would be no determinate place to receive their influence and all the fingers of the hand which have veins and arteries would equally receive it which is contrary to experience To speak the truth also all these Vessels are but Channels and Conduits which cannot more then those of Fountains give any motion to the humours but it s the spirits onely which carry and draw them to those places whereto they are ordered and as the consent which the Members have one with another is entertained by means of those spirits we cannot doubt but the blood wherewith they are mixt goes not as they do from one part to another and but that in pursuit it makes that admirable Harmony of the veins which Hippocrates hath observed For without doubt this is the Foundation whereon he and the ancient Masters in Physick have observed in one and the same Member veins which had correspondence with several parts as in the arm the Cephalick the Hepatick and the Splenetick which they have alwayes opened of course in the particular diseases of those parts not sticking at those weak reasons which the inspection of bodies and love of novelty hath since authorized Article XVIII ANd certainly had we not had recourse to this direction of the Spirits we should never have been able to have given a reason for the rectitude which Nature observes in her motions when she is absolute Mistress thereof and whom Physick imitates in the evacuations which it ordains for when by the inflammations of the Liver the right ear grows red that ulcers happen on the right hand or foot that we bleed out of the right nostril or that there is an imposthume in the right ear and that on the contrary all the same accidents happen on the left side from the inflammations of the Spleen when I say Physick commands us to let blood on the same side the malady is and teacheth us that all the evacuations which are made on the contrary side are dangerous if made of themselves or useless if done by Art What other reason is there of this regularity which can satisfie the minde more then this which we have produced for what is said of the right fibres which enter into the composition of the vessels whereby some will have the humors to be drawn it s altogether impertinent since they are unable to make this attraction as we have elsewhere demonstrated That they are equally on all the sides of the vessels and consequently cannot determine the motion of the humors to the one sooner then to another that there are not alwayes fibres to favour this rectitude since from the Spleen to the left nostril there can be none the veins of the nose proceeding from the vena cava with which the Spleen hath no connexion and that in fine the humors which we finde out of the vessels those simple vapours and qualities communicate themselves from one part to another after the same manner without need of any fibres to agitate the business and which if there were any would be useless for the transporting of vapours and qualities To say also that this is done by secret conduits which are to be found in the flesh and which move from below
to the hands and feet in respect of the other parts but if we add hereunto the advantage which the higher situation hath above the lower the excellency of the parts there placed and those particular cares which Nature takes of them as we have shown it will make it apparent that in this distribution of spirits and of vertue the hands have had the greater share and consequently that they have more communication with the noble parts then the feet or any other member whatsoever Article VIII BUt besides this communication which they have with them by means of the veins arteries and nerves there are others more secret which have more obscure wayes and passages and yet more clearly discover the truth which we seek for if it be true that the lines in the hand observe the length and the shortness of life according as they are long and short as Aristotle and experience teach us There must not onely be a greater relation and a stronger tye of the principles of life with it then there is with all the rest of the parts where these marks are not to be found but it s also necessary that the noble parts which are the Sources wherein these principles of life are shut up should communicate unto it some secret influence which can have no relation to those common and manifest vertues which it receives from them since the blood nor the spirits the heat nor motion which they distribute unto it serves not at all to render those lines long or short or to mark the length or shortness of life Article IX THat secret Sympathy which is betwixt the hand and the noble parts being then presupposed until we can more fully prove it by more just and particular observations we must establish it for a certain principle that Nature never confounds the vertues principally those which are formal and specifick which have never so little opposition amongst themselves and that she ever as much as she can separates them for without producing the maximes of Astrology which hath divided Heaven into so many Planets and Stars into so many Signs and Houses different in vertue there is no order of things in the Universe wherein this truth is not acknowledged Amongst perfect Animals the qualities which are necessary to generation have been divided into two Sexes in every of them the faculties which govern life have every one their particular seat and all the Sences have their proper Organs and their functions separated Examine Plants Minerals and Stones and you shall finde the same distinction and without troubling our selves to sever them as we might It will be sufficient to observe in the Load-stone where it is so sensible that without blindness of stupidity we need not doubt of it for in a Homogene body whose composition is every way equal and wherein it seems that all the parts ought to have the same power yet it s certain that there are some which have been partakers of magnetick qualities and that there are two Poles where they have been separately placed and if what hath been lately pretended to have been observed is true that there is a first Meridian in this stone all the rest must be so too and consequently they must every one have a different inclination So true it is that Nature loves to separate Vertues as it is that she hates Confusion and Mixture In effect did she not exactly observe this order things would often be done contrary to design one quality would destroy another and effects would not answer their causes nor the end they are destined unto Article X. IF this be so and if there are particular Vertues which the noble parts communicate to the Hand they must not confound themselves together they must not be placed in the same part and therefore there must be a place destined for that of the Liver another for that of the Heart and so for all the rest But the greatest difficulty is in what parts and particular places these influences are received for although Chiromancy assures us that the fore-finger hath a sympathy with the Liver the second with the Spleen the third with the heart c. Yet it produceth no convincing proof of this truth and what experiences so ever it produceth to maintain it they still leave those in doubt who will not be satisfied with their reasons and they seem often to be fancies and grocesios in the Minde forged only by humane curiosity and of a truth who ever could well have established this sympathy by other observations then those which are fetched from the stock of Chiromancy and had Medicine or some other part of Physick furnished them he might have boasted to have discovered the Mistery of this Science and to have found the onely foundation whereon the truth of all the rest was grounded for my part I pretend not to produce all those which are necessary to make a full proof thereof yet I beleeve I have some which may commence it and which having demonstrated one part will leave an invincible presumption for all the rest with hopes that a man might after a diligent observation of what happens to that admirable Organ perfect the same Article XI THe first which we therefore ought to propose is to shew the consent and sympathy which the Liver hath with the fore-finger called the Index and this is drawn from Physick which teacheth us that Leprosie hath its Source and principal Seat in the Liver and that one of the first signes whereby it is first made known appears on that finger for when all the Muscles of the hand and even all the body are sull and juycy those which serve for the motion of that finger are dried and withered principally that which is in the Thenar that is to say in the space which is betwixt that finger and the thumb wherein all what is fleshy wasts it self and nothing remains but the skin and fibres which lie flatted to the bones Now this cannot thus happen but that there must be some Analogy and some secret commerce betwixt the Liver and that part since it is one of the first which resents the alteration which is made in its substance it being truly said that there is no disease which so much corrups the nature of the Liver and destroys not onely its vertue but even its substance as this which for that cause is called the universal Cancer of the Liver and of all the mass of blood Galen was without doubt ignorant of this sympathy which ratiocination alone could never have discovered whereas to have been instructed therein it must have been revealed to him in a dream for he reports that having been assaulted by a violent grief which caused him to fear an impostune in the Liver he was in his sleep advised to cause that Artery to be opened which runs all along that finger and that this remedy in an instant appeased the grief which he had resented for a long time before which
upwards whereof those which are on the one side have no communication with those on the other It s a pure imagination which hath no probability since these evacuations are most commonly made by the veins and that the humors which run by those secret Conduits must enter into the veins where notwithstanding there are no passages there must also Conduits be found which must go cross since the humors somtimes go from the right side to the left sometimes from the fore to the hinder parts and most commonly from the center to the circumference Beyond all in either of these opinions we cannot see what the danger would be were not this rectitude observed in the evacuation of humors But supposing that it s done by the direction of the spirits its easie to judge that Nature must be very highly opprest when she observes not that order which was prescribed unto her and when she wanders from her ordinary road to fly from the Enemy which presseth her for its the reason for which those motions which she makes in sharp Fevers in equal dayes are very dangerous because it s a sign of the violence which she suffers and of the disorder wherein the greatness of the ill hath cast her which makes her forget the odd dayes in which she ought to assault choler which is the cause of those diseases However it be the rectitude we mentioned infallibly comes from the spirits which lead the humors within the compass of one half of the body without carrying them to one another unless there be some great impediment for Nature takes so much care for the preservation of living and animal things that she hath divided them all into two halfs that if it happened the one should suffer any alteration the other might save it self therefrom and so preserve in that the Nature of the whole Now this division is real and manifest in some subjects as in grains and seeds of Plants which all are composed of two portions which may be separated and in all the Members of Animals which have them double in others it is obscure and appears not in an actual separation of the parts but onely in the operations which shew that they have every one of them their distinct jurisdiction and their different interests as that is whereof we speak which distinguisheth the body into two halfs the one of which is right the other left such also is that which is to be found in those members which are but One as the Brain the Tongue the Nose c. where we often see the one half assaulted by an ill and the other exempt from it although in themselves there is not any separation If it therefore be true that Nature to preserve the one half of the body chargeth the other with all the disorder which happens unto it and hinders those humors which afflict it from issuing out of their bounds to cast it self on the other we cannot doubt but the Spirits which are the first and principal Organs will serve her in this undertaking and but that it is they which carry the humors from one place to another in the compass prescribed unto them by her So that if it should happen that to make this transport it were necessary to make use of the veins which are on the other side they for that forget not Natures design nor those orders which they have received and do but onely pass if we may so speak into the neighbours limits to arrive at that place whereto they ought to come Thus when to discharge the Spleen from those humors which incommodate it a bleeding of the Nose happens to the left nostril they must of necessity pass from the veins of the Spleen into the vena cava which is on the right side but the spirits know how so to direct them that they at last return to the same line and into that half of the body wherein the Spleen resides But it s to enter too far into the secrets of Physick its sufficient to say that the communication which the veins have one with another in that ingenious distribution which Hippocrates hath made proceeds from the Spirits which carry the humors from one to another according to the relation and consent which the parts have together or according to that rectitude which they keep amongst themselves Article XIX TO return to the sympathy which the inward members have with the parts of the hand I conceive that the reasons which we have deduced to maintain it if they do not altogether convince the most opinionated yet will they at least leave in their mindes great suspition of the truth thereof And I doubt not but Chiromancy ought to rest satisfied since they establish what til now was unknown unto it the principal of its foundations and that it will afterwards be easie for it to uphold it with the maximes of Astrology which is to furnish it with the most part of its rules and be security for the greatest of its promises In effect if it be true that the inward parts are governed by the Planets and that they receive from the Stars some particular influence as Astrology teacheth it must needs be that with the vertue which those parts send to the hand that which the Planets communicate unto them must also be carried unto them And at the same finger where the heart for an example causeth an influence of its vettue that Planet which hath the direction of the heart must also dispence his It being not probable that this should stop at the heart whilst that dispenceth to the hands what is proper and natural unto it Since supposing the truth of celestial influences we must say that of these two vertues there is but one contracted which is the onely essential disposition and specifick property of every part Now so it is that in a conclusion in Astrology proved by its principles and observations that the Liver is governed by Jupiter the Spleen by Saturne the heart by the Sun and so for the rest The first finger must therefore be be governed by Jupiter the second by Saturne the third by the Sun c. since these principal parts have a sympathy and consent with those fingers and communicate with them the vertue which they have neither need we wonder that Chiromancy hath changed the order of the Planets in the hand nor ask why it hath rather placed Jupiter on the fore-finger and the Sun on the third then in any other place because the nature of the Heart and Liver and the sympathy which they have with those fingers hath remarked those places as the particular houses which these Planets have in the Hand as they have in Heaven those which are affected unto them All the difficulty reduceth it self to this point to know whether these stars do onely govern the principal parts of the body and whether they communicate any secret vertue unto them which causeth the good or ill disposition which they have