the same course of Nature and power with the Heavens Concerning the Creation of Man Severinus saith Man is a quintessence extracted from the Firmament and Elements or a subtile Essence of the whole World extracted and concreted into one body And so is the compleat image of the Universe and he adds that God in creating the World plaid the Spagyrist or Chymist These things plainly taken are not to be endured because there are two parts that constitute man the soul and the body neither of which being alone can be called man There are also spirits in the body which are the principal instruments of the soul and the soul useth them immediately in the actions of life These spirits are invisible but corporeal if the Chymists take these for the invisible man they tell us no news onely they speak improperly when they give the name of the whole to a part of man If they mean any thing besides spirits to be the invisible man they multiply beings or they must prove that besides the body soul and spirit there is an other substance in man and I shall not yeild to them till they do Then in describing the Creation of man Crollius is very rash for God by his power created man of clay and gave him strength as he pleased nor had he need of the Spagyrick Art to give him strength and we read that man was made according to Gods image and we read not that that clay or dust of which he was made was the quintessence of the whole World therefore the Paracelsians are out What they say of generation nourishment and rule of mans body is according to Hippocrates and Galen only a little coloured with other fictions yet some things are false When they say that generation is from mechanical spirits and that after generation the body being compleat all natural actions are administred they say true but it is no news But they erre in two points First for rejecting the temperament to be from the first qualities as though it availed not for actions for an animated part having its temper and full of natural heat and spirits is the adequate or fit organ for every action therefore none of these must be wanting Then they erre in that they give knowledg to act simply to the spirits for they act not by their own strength but are directed by the soul and this knowledg is belonging to the soul which is the first cause of all actions in a living body Fourthly they think not right concerning blood when they deny it to be the nourishment of the body and place it above the dignity of the parts for experience teacheth that the chyle is turned into blood as the meat into chyle for no other end but that the whole body should be nourished with blood Therefore since Severinus hath questioned so plainly a matter and brought no reasons against it we may with as much ease deny what he saies Fiftly when he saith the spirits are hungry and filled it is absurd for it is the creatures properly but the spirits are refreshed and restored it is one thing to indicate and another to defire Consumed spirits indicate restauration but the appetite desires to be preserved by its like and to have what is troublesom removed Sixthly they make blood one of the parts and and it may be allowed but let them understand parts as Hippocrates did when he divided the body into parts cōtaining contained and such as do force otherwise blood is no part but nourishment They do ill to give the government of the body to blood because it is only for nourishmēt but the spirits govern the body under the soul Seventhly they do ill to accuse the Galenists of idleness Nor are they ignorant of that of Hippocrates of places in men which Severinus quored nor are they ignorant that the diseases in the joynts are worst when humors flow from other parts under them This they call by a new name Synovia and they know not what to determine about it But Hippocrates only attributes that humor to the joynts that they may move better Paracelsus thought otherwise of Synovia when he said It is a nourishment of its part Lib. 7. paragr par 7 And they since say it is an internal vertue and agility or a sweet Milk which nourisheth the parts all these hang not well together Eightly Severinus doth undeservedly accuse Galen because he reckoned not the gall among the parts of the body for it ought to be cast out as an excrement it is so far from being a part that constitutes a body Ninthly when Severinus makes a stomach in the liver and other parts it is simple to quible so upon the word Stomach as Paracelsus did when he said the pleurisie was in the head The 10. Chapter of Severinus is Galen in other words Lib. 3. de morb tartareis c. 4. The Paracelsians toss the humors strangely and say they are but bare words and call the Galenists Humorists because saith Paracelsus Neither Heaven nor Earth knows flegm choler or melancholy therefore they are not in man And why should we prove the humors from the Analogy between the great and little World It is foolish without sense or experience to flie to such Analogical proofs For as in other creatures so in man there is blood which nourisheth now sense teacheth that blood is made of meats received but not Salt Sulphur or Mercury and when a vein is opened blood is let out not Salt Sulphur or Mercury and in all bodies in all times ages places and countries blood is found But Paracelsus differs in this from himself and mentions blood and humors in many of his Books But they will answer that it is manifest to the senses that blood is in the veins but they will shew by an artificial dissolving of it that it hath three Principles as they shew from what fountain actions proceed but here they seem wise for while we speak of blood and humors the question is not touching the first Principles of things but of the immediate in mans body and perfect animals Suppose we grant that blood and humors are made of Salt Sulphur and Mercury therefore must the ancient names of choler blood flegm and melancholy be rejected by the same reason you may reject the appellations of bones membranes flesh and of all parts for by the principles of Chymists these are made of their three principles as well as blood Therefore it is fit that ancient should be kept to which Galen Hippocrates Aristotle Avicen Mefue and the rest have agreed both Chymists and others For it is not for every one to give names to things nor was Paracelsus so great a man that he ought so to do The names of the humors are not insignificant without essence and properties Seed Flesh and Bone are made of Blood as the rest but because they have a new form they take new names And that which was before called Bread may be called
here he did ill for all Physitians have acknowledged diet to be necessary to the cure of all diseases and he that neglects it finds it by experience In feavers it is plain for if the patient eat too freely or that which is improper he relapseth And in many diseases good diet is half the cure As for Physick let us consider the universal Medicine which the Chymists so commend by which a man may be preserved from diseases to the determinated time of his life as Robert Valensis writes Lib. de verit Chymiae This as Arnold de Vill a nova faith Hath vertue and force above all Medicines to cure all diseases both hot and cold because it is of an occult and subtile Nature it keeps Nature in health strengthens its vertues and makes the old young and expels all infirmities c. But many Chymists think there is no such universal Medicine that can cure all diseases in similary and organical parts in excess and defect and in conformation They confess that wounds fractures and luxations Ruptures and the like which require Chyrurgery are not ment here They except also the stone hereditary diseases hecticks and diseases in number deficient fixed Cancers and Gangrenes because God alone not man can cure all diseases only they are only curable with this universal Medicine that come from the inward fault of the humors or as they say Which spring from an internal Root And they call it a Medicine of much use as the Ancients called it a Panacea But the Chymists brag of this but few or none have explained it They say it is enough to know the patient to be sick and that next to the Word of God by which eternal life is promised there is nothing more precious but this Medicine is rather to be wished then hoped for nor was that yet found that hath done that which the Philosophers stone doth in transmutation of Metals it is plain and many of our age have had it but it is not evident what it hath done in curing diseases nor yet any thing proved by good witness If this Philosophers-stone can trāsmute ignoble Metals yet it follows not that it is an universal medicine for they should first prove it upon thēselves as Paracelsus and others that bragged of the Philosophers-stone and yet died all young But they which have this universal Medicine and do hide it have no mercy like Christians when they see so many men tormented and will not help them Nor are good things to be concealed because they are abused I doubt whether a Christian Physitian can with a safe conscience conceal a Medicine that can cure great diseases and if he do he doth not like a Christian that must love his neighbor as himself They agree not among themselves in determinating this Medicine for many take it for the Philosophers-stone yet Scheunaman makes the leaves of black Hellebore almost equal to the Philosophers-stone and saith that they being brought into a Balsom make a man live a second age and do purge beyond all There are three opinions of the universal Medicine The first is of them that think that it cures all diseases not primarily but secondarily by strengthening Nature wonderfully for according to Hippocrates Nature is the Physitian she concocts separates voideth and takes away all faintness And here the Chymists extol their Quintessence and Balsom and their incomparable vital Sulphur they call the secret flower the Sun and the Heaven They say their Quintessence and aetherial Spirit diffused through all natural things is the fountain of all vigor and actions In Animals it gives soul in Vegetables it gives growth and vegetation in Minerals and Metals it doth according to them In men it makes concoction and Crisis and then triumphs over his conquered enemy They say this Spirit and Quincessence and Balsomick Medicine comes from the great World to the less that the spirit in the body of man being helped by external aid that is by this strengthener may oppose diseases more valiantly and either change what is foul in the body to a natural state and expel it Some say this is to be done by Chymistry so that it may easily agree and be united to our natural heat and radical moisture and spirit and increase it and raise it to the height of purity And though this quintessence be in all things yet it is more in some then in others And the universal Medicine is to be made of that in which this Quintessence doth most abound but what and what kind of matter it is they do not explain Of this first opinion I think thus First I admit of what they say touching the strength of inbred spirit The Galenists teach this only let us have the soul to be the principle agent this inbred spirit Inst l 5. p. 1. s 1. c. 3. to be only an instrument of it Nor do I wholly reject their Quintessence but admit it so as I shewed in my Institutions namely to be somthing like to the Element of the Heavens a spirit such as is in wine by which it so strengthens the body and refresheth the spirits and by Chymical resolution you may shew it in all plants And many Galenists confess that there is in Medicines not onely that which works by the first qualities Part. 2. disp contra Paracels but by a nobler force Therefore Erastus speaks too rash to call the Quintessence a Dream of idle persons that desire to cheat But let us grant them this and that there is Nature that which abounds with this Quintessence and Spirit which being artificially prepared hath great power to strengthen and therefore may be called an universal Medicine Yet they prove not that it can cure all diseases without purgers alterers and openers and the like And it cannot be that Nature should purge water in a Dropsie with Medicines that move the belly or discuss the nodes in the Gout or the Stone without help of Medicines And though all diseases should come from the hurt of the vital spirit yet the cause of that hurt may be manifold therefore to restore the spirits divers Medicines must be given according to the variety of causes that hinder it Therefore it is not sufficient that the spirit which governs the whole body be strengthened but the strength of every privat part must be preserved The second opinion is of those that allow not only force to the universal Medicine to strengthen the inbred Balsom and Spirit but to dissolve consume and dissipate the seminary tinctures and impurities or diseases and causes thereof But let us consider if this may be to defend their opinion they say that fire burns all things Antimony consumes all Metals mixed with gold and hurts not that therefore the same may be by the universal Medicine which like a purging fire consumes all the impurities of our bodies Secondly they say as there are poysons as Arsenick and that of a mad Dog which hurts
multiply it self For it is most certain that the Veins of Allum Vitriol and Metals being exhausted after some time have been filled again In ex trac quaest Chymi de la. Philo. of which see John Conradus Gerhard Doctor of Physick Nor is it absurd in Minerals to say that the Spirit that makes gold or silver wil grow with a sit matter and being gold or silver and this gold and silver before it grow solid and be boyled out can send from it self gold and silver-making spirits which may turn a fit matter into gold or silver and so the Mines are kept still full But the doubt is Lib. 1. de plantis whether they grow properly Scaliger denies Stones to grow yet some allow a seed to Metals and Minerals if not univocal or proper yet Analogical or like This I take to be certain that these forms or seeds were first created of God to be the principles of their kinds And this seminal principle or spirit that formeth Lib. de lapid gen c. 1. is in an hidden manner in Metals and Stones see Anselme Boetius concerning this Chap. 10. Of the Spirit and inbred Heat SEverinus and other modern Chymists mention a Natural Balsom a vital Sulphur a vital Mummy and they mean nothing but the inbred Spirit and natural heat mentioned by Galen and the Peripateticks For this natural heat the question is not concerning the bare heat or quality but the body for Aristotle calls it a Body others a Spirit And Galen saith that the natural heat is the active Spirit 3. de sympt med fac c. 9. and it is better with Aristotle to call this substance a Spirit then with the Physitians a Natural Heat although it signifies not only a naked quality but a substance Yet this appellation came frō the perfectest animals which are hot when touched and act by a heat that may be felt for in plants there is the same spirit but it is not to be felt though it is in the coldest weather in them The word Spirit is used diversly but here for a substance thin and subtile that belongs to the constitution of animals vegetables and other things which the form or soul useth as a principle instrument to act by But whether is this Spirit of Aristoles of an elementary Nature We deny not that it is joyned with elementary heat so that it can scarce be found without it as the animal faculty is not found without the natural But if you ask if that Spirit have nothing in it but what is elementary we answer with Fernel Variola Schenkius and others that there is somthing spiritual in natural things besides the Elements To prove this take Scaligers arguments Exercit. 307. saying Every form of a perfect mixture though it be not a soul as in a Diamond hath a fifth Nature distinct far from the four Elements From whence there is a strong argument against Alexander that made the soul to be composed of the four Elements There is in the powers of the soul which never was in the powers of any Elements But there is nothing contained in any thing that was not actual in its principles for the principles are the acts of those things of which they are principles But in the soul there is faculty to move forward backward to the right or left which is not in any Element also there are many powers in the soul which are not in the Elements This strong argument we apply thus to our purpose There is that in the powers of this Spirit or heat which never was in the powers of any Elements and the powers are more excellent Therefore this Spirit is not only from the Elements Another is from Aristotle though he only applies it to Seeds 2. De gen ani c. 3. That which partakes of a Spirit in which there is a Nature that answers in a certain proportion to the heavenly heat hath a body better then the Elements But every soul hath such a Spirit therfore it partakes of a body better then the Elements For certainly there is a more divine vertue then the Elements in a body that is better then the Elements For the vertue and the subject must answer each other hence it is that according to the noblenss and ignobleness of the soul the begetter of those vertues and the subject body are different And because this Spirit makes fruitful seeds like the coelestial heat in proportion I thus argue A heat like the caelestial is more divine then an elementary heat but the heat of the seed is such therefore it is more divine I prove the major from the efficacy of both heats That heat is more like coelestial heat whose operation comes nearer to the efficacy of a coeleitial heat but the heat of the seed comes nearer the acting to the coelestial heat then the heat of the Elements and therefore is more like the coelestial heat Alchy triumph c. 9. for the heat of the fire is not so sweet and benigne as that of the Heavens Therefore Libavius writes that neither the common Elements nor the vertue of them all nor any conjunction of them can effect that Rhubarb should purge or that a flie should not be bred The heat of Animals is from the Elements as it is heat but as it is fruitful it is from a nobler cause As for examples the hammer makes a pot not as it is iron but as it hath a power from the Artificer If they say this heat is elementary but it acts more powerfully in a mixt body then when it is simple we say that it cannot act beyond its strength in a mixt body and nothing can do what is not in its own nor in the Elements power with which it is mixed And if these noble actions may be from the mixture of Elements temper of the first qualities why may not life voluntary motion sight and all animal actions and the Soul it self as Alexander saith be fetcht from the same mixture We grant that heat doth much as it is the instrument of the Soul which alone it cannot do as it hath divers effects as to make chyle in the Stomach blood in the Liver but these actions are not to be attributed to heat alone but to the Soul that useth the heat Yet it followeth not hence that all actions which are nobler then those of the Elements come from the Soul for the dead parts of beasts have some operations and force which cannot be reduced to the Elements Why then may there not be actions in living creatures and accidents which come not from the Soul what is common to the Soul with Scents Savors Colours Therefore do they that deny this heat to be like that of the Element of the Stars in vain flie to the Soul For the divers distinct qualities affections and actions in natural things are to be refer'd to the distinct principles from whence they flow for every species hath its proper
qualities and powers as reason is in a man heat cold moisture driness come from the Elements and divers temperaments that arise from them also lightness and heaviness and what cannot be referr'd to these comes from another principle To this belong the intentional qualities as the visible species known to all and others like hence are many hidden consents and dissents of things which have their subjects in which they are and from whence they come as for example many cannot abide the presence of a Cat though she be in a Cupboard and they neither see nor hear her So there are many hidden influences of heavenly bodies which affect a man and yet they are not perceived either by sight hearing or scent or any other sense but only by the affect we confess that somthing doth flie out of the Load-stone to the Iron by which it comes to it but sense cannot comprehend it And this is the chief foundation of natural magick if there be any some say it is the perfection of Natural Philosophy which doth wonders by the fit application of Agents and Patients others deny it First because Physick is a Science but this Magick is an operation therefore it cannot be the end and perfection of Natural Philosophy Secondly what is delivered by Baptista Porta concerning Natural Magick are not above and besides the condition of Nature Prius Merand de rer praeuol lib. 7. c. 2. They think best of this that say some Magick is from the Devil by an open and express league another which is honoured of many as being Natural which comes from a silent bargain with the Devil and to this belongs that which Plato writes of in his Alcibiades thus the Magick of Zoraster is in the worship of Gods which were Devils It was famous among the Aegyptians and Chaldaeans and the Paracelsians at this day commend it highly We deny not that Magick Natural which goes beyond the bounds of Nature and which consists in a Sympathy of Natural things But to the business The conditions of Natural heat are different from those of the Elementary for in cold Animals and Plants cold in respect of their elementary temper the inbred Heat is the cause of all attraction excretion increase generation and life this is not in the Elementary and the heat there is not contrary to the cold for Plants and their seeds and roots in winter and frost keep their strength and often they grow under the Snow and if that heat were Elementary it would be easily overcome of the cold Moreover that Spirit and body like the Air is swifter and lighter then any Element and hath fit heat to perform all actions agreable to its kind from whence it hath its denomination in Animals v. 4. de mundo Also this body hath great piercing force and Aristotle calls it a Spirit Nor is it absurd for Spirits to pierce each other for the Animal Vital and Natural pass through each other without confusion as may be observed in the Eye which lives feels and fees which actions are performed by divers motions It is not hard to answer Zabarells argument concerning the heat like the Airy Element He thinks there are not two heats in a living creature one Elementary the other Vital because two accidents cannot be in one subject of the same species distinct in number First I deny that they are of the same species Secondly that they are in the same subject the Elementary heat hath fire for its subject the vital or coelestial hath the spirit or body like the Element of Stars and if the subjects be mixed there is nothing hinders that these two heats should be united To conclude In defensio Contra ano renum c. 23. Syntag. arca Chymi lib. 1. c. 22. To know the nature of Spirits read Quercetans History where he shews that a Rose or Marigold in a Glass sealed up by Hermas his Seal may revive by their Spirit like the Resurrection Libavius saith the same which the haters of Chymistry have not observed Chap. 11. Of the Principles of the Chymists ISaac Holland Basil Valentine and after them Paracelsus and Severinus make three Principles of Chymistry and also Quercetan they are Salt Sulphur and Mercury they give the names of the Species in which the faculties are most flourishing liquors of Mercury oyls of Sulphur thicker bodies are called Salt not that they are the principles of things but because the differences of three substances of which all bodies are made with the properties and conditions are not explained more in any species of Nature And being there are three orders of the bodies of the lower world Animals Vegetables and Minerals Ideae Phil. c. 8. Severinus shews that these three principles are to be found in every individual of them And they say a Physitian must resolve all bodies into these principles and all the properties of all bodies are found either in the Salt Sulphur or Mercury nor do they plainly declare their offices in the constitution of things Severine saith Salt gives the consistence of solidity and coagulation Sulphur with his oyl tempers the congelation of the Salt And Mercury by dewing it with a fluid substance makes the mixture more easie Quercetan saith the divers tast is from Salts Lib. de intervis rerum li quaturis sent from Sulphur and colour from both especially from Mercury And Hermes called these three the Spirit Soul and Body Mercury the Spirit Sulphur the Soul Salt the Body Begwin saith Tyroci Chym. lib. 1. c. 2. falt is the bond of the other bodies that Mercury and Sulphur flie not away Sulphur is like the Sun digests concocts nourisheth generateth pleaseth the scent consumes superfluities in the body attracts That Mercury is the Spirit of the World from the great Mystery so they are not fixed in delivering their principle and explain not what they are nor distinguish them for they say they are in each other as Sulphur and Mercury in Salt in Mercury Salt and Sulphur in Sulphur Salt Mercury They call these Vital Principles because they give strength faculty and power to things and are the causes of actions They call them also formal Principles because they give power of action to things and open the hidden waies of action and supply the explication of occult qualities Now are there such principles How and of what things are they principles In labyrin med errant I reject their opinion because they say they were before the Elements and Heaven is made of them For they have not proved them to be the principles of things subject to generation and resolution The Learned modern Chymists dare not defend this but say the Elements were before these principles in order of natural bodies Therefore let us see whether there are other principles besides the Elements of natural sublunary bodies Metals Minerals Gemms Stones Flants and Animals I say Chymical principles were not before the Elements as simple bodies but either
gladness at what is pleasant and sorrow at what is unpleasant these passions have great power to alter the body But phansie doth not immediately alter the body by the appetite but as the appetite moves the natural moving faculties in the members and chiefly in the heart these being moved do move the humors and spirits and the spirits comming and going to the part do change them Therefore the remote cause of alteration is the phansie and so it affects its own body and causeth divers diseases in it but of it self it causeth none And if it should the disease would be but imaginary not real So some melancholick people have thought they had great noses or bodies and yet were not so And though some fall into diseases by imagination yet the phansie doth not of it self but by accident by reason of fear which moves the malignant humors lurking in the body and these being moved cause the plague One Vincent thought his body so big that he could not pass through the door and when the Physitian commanded him to be carried through he complained that he was very much bruised and soon after died But this is not because the patient imagineth but because he is diseased And if imagination doth any thing it is by accident from sorrow or fear and the like passions Many diseases come by accident by means of the spirits and humors as they are different in nature and motion And imagination being the cause of divers passions as anger sorrow much joy they have such force to corrupt and change humors that we need not prove it Moreover strong imagination draws the spirits and humors strongly to the head and the heat is taken from the parts ordained for nourishment Thus imagination may cure diseases namely by accident not of it self for confidence makes the patient obey orders because imagination brings passions by which the humors and spirits are moved by which motion they oppose the disease Therefore confidence begets chearfulness and this stirs up the natural heat and spirits and so there is better concoction and the bad humors are overcome and the disease opposed Hence it is that they who are alwaies sad have many crudities and soul humors from the constant loss of heat and spirits From the same cause if patients have some meats they longed for they recover though they be not wholsom And Hippocrates saith that the best meats 2. Aphoris 38. if not affected cause loathing and the stomach doth not rightly embrace and concoct them hence come wind and crudities and the disease increaseth or the patient is longer sick 〈◊〉 â—â—at taken in with pleasure somtimes curethe because either by the joy the spirits which were dull by the disease are raised and refreshed which are the fittest instrument to conquer soul humors and the disease or because when then the patient hath his desire ceaseth from that imagination and the disease which was falsly supposed There are many Histories of this in Thomas á Vega and Alexander Trallian Com. in art med Galeni c. 48. Tralia lib. 2. c. 17. who speaks of a Woman that thought she had swallowed a Serpent Therefore if imagination of it self cannot afflict its own body it cannot change or hurt any other body For the soul cannot act upon externals but by means of the body because the phansie is an immanent action not transient But by accident it may do somwhat for what is said of Witchcraft is not to be wholly despised They say the Baselisk kils a man by the poysonous beams from his eyes These come from spirits and vapors by which the occult Sympathies and contracts of things are And the imagination may somwhat direct these spirits as we said by moving the natural faculties or stirring up the passions so in envy hatred anger venemous humors which are moved in the body are carried to the eyes and flow from thence But a certain distance is required and it is absurd to think that any can be afflicted at many miles distance and it is worse to ascribe to imagination things beyond its force and to which it no waies concurs as when they say a man may fall from a horse by imagination or corn be carried from one field into another Lastly let us consider what imagination can do in child-bearing Hipp 1. de supert Gal dether ad pis Avic fen 2. lib 1. doctr 2. c. 14. gen c. 30. of which there are many Observations so that it is simple to doubt them Hippocrates Galen and Avicen and many other Authors prove it and that of the Patriach Jacob is well known But it is hard to know how imagination could change a child It is certain that the phansie being known and an immanent power doth not of it self change the child and the forming faculty is the immediate cause of quantity figure number position and heat and not the imagination Nor is the child changed by a species of the phansie because of it self it cannot produce any real quality nor hath it any force but to move imagination and to represent to its object and if this species had any force there would be more changes in children It is therefore more probable to reason that the child is changed by the phansie either through the passions and motions of the spirits and humors or by directing the forming faculty The changes and hurts in children are of two sorts common and determinate The common are abortion death inward sickness and weakness smalness or greatness of some part defect or abundance in number The determinate are changes and signatures which have a determinate similitude to some outward thing as for Example when they long for Cherries the impression of a Cherry will be upon the child The first changes may be from phansie by means of the passions and motion of the humors and spirits but the determinate signatures which answer to external things that are offered to the imagination cannot be by motion of the humors and spirits by the imagination For the passions stirs the spirits and humors which stirred are carried with force or in plenty to the child which troubles it and cause abortion by stirring up of the expulsive faculty of the womb Somtimes the forming faculty is disturbed from the same cause in its operation or is overwhelmed or the spirits and humors being sent another way the parts are not rightly formed or they are greater or less But these are not determinate faults nor have they any resemblance with external things because they are made by an accidental motion of the humors onely stirred by the passions and they are not determinated by a peculiar manner according to the species received in the imagination Therefore these errors are to be attributed rather to the passions of the mind â—hen to imagination nor doth the phansie truly and effectually conduce to them nor otherwise then as it stirs up the appetite But when these signatures are determinated and peculiar according to
Medicines is of little weight so that the way of composition used is not to be abolished and their arguments are most from the Galenists that allow them not and all Doctors disallow the crowding in of divers Simples without a cause and they think it rashness to use Compounds when Simples will do and that it is bad to put many Simples of the same faculty into one Compound But many may be mixed when diseases are complicate both in the affects and the causes when Medicines are to be directed by many ends which cannot be done by one simple Medicine for one simple Medicine can scarce be found that hath so many faculties joyned together as the Doctor hath ends propounded Therefore let Chymical preparations have their due praise and place and the Vulgar preparations theirs But it is the part of an idle and too curious person to prepare all things Chymically and when a Conserve or a Pouder wil serve to give an Oyl or a Spirit Nor is the commendation of a Chymical medicine for its smal dose sufficient because it causeth no disgust for so you may commend poysons This is the error of many who to please the palate only give the Extract of Scammony Cambugia or a little Pouder but great in operation but consider not whether it hit the disease and evacuate the peccant humor To conclude it is the part of a prudent Physitian somtimes to use Chymical somtimes whole Medicines according to the circumstances of the diseases place and time They also are not wise who reject exotick or outlandish Medicines for neither wine nor spices that grow from home being used every day are enemies Every Land doth not produce every thing Therefore there is commerce that one Nation should supply the other It is true that the Galenists say if home-bred Physick it were in vain to get forraign but if not there is no reason why exotick Medicines may not be used We reject not wholly Physick made of Minerals and Metals Dios l. 1. c. 17. Gal. de med fac parabilib 2. c. 36. being perswaded by the Spaw-waters that cure desparate diseases The ancient Physitians gave them inwardly as well as outwardly as Steel Sulphur vive scales of Brass burnt Brass and the like Therefore we may better use them Chymically prepared Niter prepared called Sal Prunellae is used happily against Quinzies and Feavers Antimony and Mercury if well given do what other Medicines cannot A Girl of twelve years old used Antimony Diaphoretick every day who had many ulcers about the joynts when other remedies were of no force and was cured But because these have often done hurt you must be wary in using them least Mercury of life so called become Mercury or a messenger of death It may be objected that Metals are enemies to Nature but we must labor to take away that enmity by Chymistry you may see this in Arseâ—â—â—â— which being present poyson laies aside all its venom by Chymical preparation Yet we commend not them that include all Medicines in a few Metals as if God had made Vegetables in vain It is known to all how Medicines made of Vegetables and Animals refresh both the sound and the sick with their pleasant tast and scent and it is not yet proved that Minerals can do the same Hence the question is easily decided whether Chymical or Galenical Medicines are best To speak my thoughts they both have their places and praises but if you ask which is to be preferred the one simply cannot be preferred before the other For though the Chymists have a certain prerogative yet indeed they are not better then Galenists but the Medicines excel in respect of preparation nor are they simply to be preferred for this cause for I said both have their place and it is the part of an unexperienced man never to desire to use Chymical medicines or not to use whole medicines but all Extracts or Essences For some medicines so disperse their vertue through the whole body that if their parts should be separated they would partly or wholly loose it Others have their strength in other parts where consider in what part it is Therefore use whole medicines when the force desired is in the whole body and vanisheth when it is dissolved But use dissolved or separated medicines when the strength of them is divers and comes from divers parts or when the force of the medicine may be brought into a small quantity by taking away what is unprofitable Here observe that which way soever Antimony and Mercury are prepared they never wil be so good and safe as Cassia Manna Tamarinds Senna Rhubarb and the like and from one grain of them more hurt may come then from an ounce of ordinary Physick And which way soever they are prepared they are alwaies accounted vehement medicines Though some brag of secrets and singular preparations they have not yet discovered them Therefore let the Chymists prove that the volatile purging Spirit that passeth through the whole body remains such in Antimony and Mercury after preparation so that it may be so benigne and familiar to our Nature as Cassia and Tamarinds and the rest This they will scarce do for that Spirit is easier to the fixed or thrown away then to be qualified as to loose its nature Lib. 4. Epist ad Andr. de Blauu Mathiolus saies well on the other side When the whole mass of blood is all over corrupt and filled with the seeds of diseases these cannot be cured but by Minerals Therefore a wise Physitian must use somtimes this and somtimes that as the nature of the diseases and circumstances requires as Pouders Decoctions Infusions or Extracts Minerals and domestick and forraign Medicines As for Example when you will strengthen and bind Conserve of Roses doth that which a Spirit or Water or Salt of the same cannot do on the other side the strength of medicines is greater in Chymistry as in Oyls and Spirits For the Physical part is separated from what is unprofitable that hinders its operation and so it is given pure Therfore we conclude that Chymical medicines considered simply are nobler of themselves because purer and more active but they are not alwaies and every where to be preferred before Galenical Nor is the objection against Chymical medicines of force when they say that what ariseth from the solution of the mixture is not specifical and the Chymists while they dissolve the mixture Lib. 3. de simpt med fac c. 14. destroy the essence For Galen shews that all medicines though to sense simple yet are in nature compounds and so have divers faculties in the parts and afford divers uses for divers things Moreover the solution is not alwaies into the first Elements as we shewed therfore when the Chymists dissolve such bodies by art and dissolve dissimilary bodies into similary parts they are so far from destroying the strength of the medicine that they rather separate them froÌ„ all heterogeneal mixture Nor
any Medicines to go or send to Mr. Ralph Clarke Apothecary at the sign of the three Crowns on Ludgate-Hill in London where they shall be sure to have such as are skilfully and honestly made Divinity Books Printed by Peter Cole c. Eighteen Several Books of Mr. Burroughs's viz. on Matth. 11. 1 Christs Call to all those that are weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest 2 Christ the great Teacher of Souls that come to him 3 Christ the Humble Teacher of those that come to him 4 The only easie way to Heaven 5 The Excellency of Holy Courage in Evil times 6 Gospel Reconciliation 7 The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment 8 Gospel-Worship 9 Gospel-Conversation 10 A Treatise of Earthly Mindedness and of Heavenly Mindedness and Walking with God 11 An Exposition of the Prophesie of Hoseah 12 The Evil of Evils or the exceeding sinfulness of Sin 13 Of Precious Faith 14 Of Hope 15 Of Walking by Faith and not by Sight 16 The Christians living to Christ upon 2 Cor. 5.15 17 A Catechism 18 Moses Choice Dr. Hills WORKS VIZ. 1 The Beauty and Sweetness of an Olive Branch of Peace and Brotherly Accommodation Budding 2 Truth and Love happily married in the Church of Christ 3 The Spring of strengthening Grace in the Rock of Ages Christ Jesus 4 The strength of the Saints to make Jesus Christ their strength 5 The best and worst of Paul 6 Gods Eternal preparation for his Dying Saints Twenty one several Books of Mr. William Bridge Collected into two Volumes Viz. 1 Scripture light the most sure Light 2 Christ in Travel 3 A lifting up for the cast down 4 Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost 5 Of Sins of Infirmity 6 The false Apostle tried and discovered 7 The good and means of Establishment 8 The great things Faith can do 9 The great things Faith can suffer 10 The great Gospel Mystery of the Saints Comfort and Holiness opened and applied from Christs Priestly Office 11 Satans power to tempt and Christs Love to and Care of his People under Temptation 12 Thankfulness requiin every Condition 13 Grace for Grace 14 The Spiritual Actings of Faith through Naturall Impossibilities 15 Evangelical Repentance 16 The Spiritual Life and In being of Christ in all Beleevers 17 The Woman of Canaan 18 The Saints Hiding place c. 19 Christ coming c. 20 A Vindication of Gospel Ordinances 21 Grace and Love beyond Gifts Four New Books of Mr. Sydrach Sympson VIZ. 1 Of Unbelief or the want of readiness to lay hold on the comfort given by Christ 2 Not going to Christ for Life and Salvation is an exceeding great sin yet pardonable 3 Of Faith Or That believing is receiving Christ and receiving Christ is believing 4 Of Coveteousness Mr. Hookers New Books in three Volumes One in Octavo and two in Quarto These Eleven New Books of Mr. Thomas Hooker made in New-England are attested in an Epistle by Mr. Thomas Goodwin and Mr. Philip Nye to be written with the Authors own hand None being written by himself before One Volume being a Comment upon Christ's last Prayer in the seventeenth of John Wherein is shewed 1 That the end why the Saints receive all Glorious Grace is That they may be one as the Father and Christ are one 2 That God the Father loveth the Faithful as he loveth Jesus Christ 3 That our Savior desireth to have the Faithful in Heaven with himself 4 That the Happiness of our being in Heaven is to see Christs Glory 5 That there is much wanting in the Knowledg of Gods Love in the most able Saints 6 That the Lord Christ lends daily Direction according to the daily need of his Servants 7 That it is the desire and endeavor of our Savior that the dearest of Gods Love which was bestowed on himself should be given to his faithful Servants 8 That our Union and Communion with God in Christ is the top of our happiness in Heaven Ten Books of the Application of Redemption by the effectual Work of the Word and Spirit of Christ for the bringing home of lost sinners to God By Thomas Hooker of New-England In which besides many other seasonable and Soul-searching truths there is also largely shewed 1 Christ hath purchafed all spiritual good for HIS and puts them in possession thereof 2 The soul must be fitted for Christ before it can receive him and a powerful Ministry is the ordinary means to prepare the heart for Christ 3 The heart of a Natural man is wholly unwilling to submit to the Word that would sever him from his sins 4 God the Father by a holy kind of violence plucks His out of their corruptions and draws them to believe in Christ 5 Stubborn and bloody sinners may be made broken hearted 6 There must be true sight of sin before the heart can be broken for it 7 Application of special sins by the Ministry is a means to bring men to sight of and sorrow for them 8 Meditation of sin a special means to break the heart 9 The Lord sometimes makes the word prevail most when it 's most opposed 10 Sins unrepented of make way for piercing Terrors 11 Gross and scandalous sinners God usually exerciseth with heavy breakings of Heart before they be brought to Christ 12 They whose hearts are pierced by the Word are carried with love and respect to the Ministers of it And are busie to enquire and ready to submit to the mind of God 13 There is a secret hope wherewith the Lord supports the hearts of contrite Sinners 14 True contrition is accompanied with confenion of sin when God calis thereunto 15 The Soul that is pierced for sin is carried with a restless dislike against it The Kings Tryal at the High Court of Justice The wise Virgin Published by Mr. Thomas Weld of New-England Mr. Rogers on Naaman the Syrian his Disease and Cure discovering the Leprosie of Sin and Self love with the Gure viz. Self-denial and Faith A Godly and fruitful Exposition on the first Epistle of Peter By Mr. John Rogers Minister of the word of God at Dedham in Essex Mr. Rogers his Treatise of Marriage An Exposition on the Gospel of the Evangelist St. Mathew By Mr. Ward A BOOK Concerning the Agreement Disagreement Of the CHYMISTS With Aristotles and Galens Followers Chap. 1. Of the Nature of Chymistry WEE shall not stand much upon the Interpretation of the word Chymistry because it is disputable whether it be derived from the Greeks or from the Arabians or Egyptians Paracelsus other modern Physitians called it Spagery from the Greek words that signifies to pull in pieces or divide and also to unite or joyn together as being an Art to dissolve and Unite again any natural bodies Some proudly call this Art Philosophy and they who study the Philosophers-stone are called the only true Philosophers and Philosophers Sons of which see the Book called Turba Philosophorum It is called from Hermes or Mercury the
mixed The modern Chymists follow Severinus and Crollius saith they are lighter but they are more dark Thus he writes In praefat admonit Our visible Elements are only the bodies and houses of others and keep off their force The Earth is twofold the outward visible the inward invisible The outward is not an Element but the body of the Element and is Salt Sulphur and Mercury but the Element of the Earth is Life and Spirit in which the Stars of the Earth lie which by the body of the Earth produce all growing things and so of the rest In which he follows the Doctrine of Paracelsus but differs from Severinus and other Chymists But many things here cannot be proved First they abuse the word Element contrary to the custom of all ages for it properly signifies the least part of that from which the thing is made as from its matter But their Elements are only places matrices receptacles And the place differs much from the matter The wiser Chymists have three principles that come from the Elements or are joyned in the composing of natural bodies But Paracelsus puts his principles before the Elements and from one mixture of Salt Sulphur and Mercury and makes Fire In labyr med err from another Air another Water and Earth which no Philosophy can allow Others make the Elements vile and servile Bodies in disgrace of God and Nature who made all very good They serve God and man and all sublunary creatures and so are to be commended nor are they by that of no value or relolling as they say For the Chymists know their actions who can do nothing with heat and cold They erre also in making the Elements gross Bodies though the Earth be Also they erre in calling them visible they may see Earth and Water but when they will see air or fire I know not They foolishly say they are dead because they never were alive And it is worse that they say The Earth is cursed As for their invisible Elements Inexam philoso we shal believe it when they prove any such hidden under these for their affirmations only cannot creat new beings Libavius writes well of Severinus The good man saith he speaks well as if he came from the treasure of Nature and saw all open but he proves nothing Severinus his Eloments being without bodies and dimensions are not to be allowed for all learned men say the principles of bodies are corporeal He saies they are not infinite therefore they have dimensions and bounds Nor doth it hang together when he calls these incorporeal Elements empty and void and allows to them contrariety and resistence and explains their invisible Nature It may be that Paracelsus put one Element within another for the form and beginning of action and original of all qualities for when the external visible Elements which are inferior to their internal have noble qualities their Elements must have more noble qualities and actions but they never shewed us any yet They say in general only that they are vital and strong to nourish the seed of generation Nor do they prove that seeds are without their species in the Elements as they say Nor did God put seeds in the Elements in the Creation but into the species of natural things in the Elements Nor are seeds seen out of the individuals in the Elements but only in the individuals of their species Nor did God say in the Creation Let the seeds of Plants be in the Elements the same reason is in Animals All things have their seed in themselves and multiply by force of the Divine Word and so the species are preserved And to that they say from Orpheus and Hippocrates We know they spake often from the opinion of the Vulgar and themselves and many things are attributed to Hippocrates which were not his And many absurdities are among the Ancients most from ignorance of the Creation Erastus examines their Doctrine at large As for the first qualities which they value not but call relolling and dead It is foolish to fight against the experience of fense by which it is plain that the first qualities have great force for generation and corruption of natural things and are as considerable as scent savor and colour While we desend the Elements we must not adhere to them alone as some Aristotle knew above the Elemēts as in his Books of the Soul And when he saith 2. de generat anim c. 3. The vertue and power of every soul partakes of another body which is more Divine then the Elements and as the souls are more or less noble so is the Nature of that body For there is in all seeds which makes them fruitful which is heat not a fire but a Spirit which is contained in the seed or froathy body And the Nature in that Spirit is like the Element of the Stars c. Alexander Aphrodisaeus saith many things are in Nature that are known only by experience In proemio probl and are called by Physitians secret proprieties and accuseth them that say the causes of such effects come from the Elements or their qualities Galen accuseth Pelops his Master Lib. 11. de simpl facult Exercit. 101. sect 14. because he would bring all things to manifest qualities and Scaliger saith it is great impudency to Cardan thus What evil genius hath lead thee to say that iron may draw the Loadstone only by mixture of Elements Hence we see that Galenists and Aristotelians are not drowned in the qualities of the Elements Also they knew the Sympathy and Antipathy of things and we defend not them that know nothing but the first qualities For alteration or hurt from manifest qualities cannot kill a man so soon as poyson Secondly the first qualities have not very great force in a smal quantity but poyson hath a little spittle of a mad Dog lyeth somtimes above six months in the body and then offends grievously 3. delo art c. 7. which elementary qualities cannot do and so of other things as the Loadstone and Purgers and Antidotes Nor do occult qualities arise from a singular temper of things mixed unknown to us Lib. 1. de plantis called Idiosynorasia for occult qualities cannot arise from the first qualities For as Scaliger saith There is no savor or tast in any Element as it is an Element nor can it be in a compound from the Elements And if occult qualities are from a singular mixture of Elements may not life laughter sense and voluntary motion and the soul come from the same And to what they say the strange actions come from the form though the qualities are the instruments of forms and are directed by them yet they never loose their strength or Nature but only exercise them If any more noble action be done it is from other faculties and qualities meeting And while they are directed by their forms they act not beyond the strength of their species As things differ
by nature were concreted and made fluid by heat and then concreted again by cold But in regard many things congeal in moisture and grow together hard whose cause is neither heat nor cold nor driness we must think of another internal cause Two kinds of concretion are to be here considered which are when no part of the matter is taken away or any other added but the whole taking its consistence and concrescence from moisture which we want fit words to distinguish The Chymists call one of these by the High-dutch word Schiessen this coagulation is properly of Salts as Vitriol Allum Niter Salts of Herbs come from a moisture to a consistence This is of Salt properly and they by nature tend to this by their form But being there is one form by nature of Niter another of Vitriol another of Allum another of common Salt Every Salt according to its form and proper spirit coagulateth and grows together in this or that figure so do Gemms concrete in certain figures Lib. 2. demasc prima v. 9. for every form makes bounds to the bigness and quantity and sigure as Zabarel shews Another sort of concretion is called Lapidescentia or turning to stone the next and adequate cause of this is not the Elements nor the principles of Chymistry only but a stone making juyce or spirit which is not without Salt and contains more then Salt as the order of nature is to go from simples to things more compound This is in all Jewels and Stones but according to their special forms We said it was a spirit and a juyce but the chief force is in the spirit and the juyce hath it from the spirit because that stone-makeing force is found in the spirit without the juice As for the differences of Salts they are altered in divers Plants and Animals as in corruption of humors there are divers differences There is Salt in Vitriol Allum Sal Armoniack Iron There is a volatile Salt in a Nettle Arsmart Cokow-pints smal Celandine Mustard There is a salt in humors that causeth the Itch Scab Cancer and other corroding Ulcers There are made Salts as Borax Sal Armoniack and the like Sulphur is another Principle of the Chymists which is properly to burn and nothing burns without it The Elements of themselves are not inflamed and if they seem to burn it is from the sulphurous vapors in them Therefore Sulphur is the first scented thing and other things are smelt by their Sulphur many things that are very sweet being whole scent not but when they are burnt or bruised Hence it is that Sulphur and Fat 's scent not much but when they are burnt or smoak Some joyn scents and savors in a subject and say the scent is of the savory part but experience shews otherwise for there are many most savory and sharp things which have little or no scent as Arsenick Sublimate Mercury and other corroding Minerals that have little or no scent Some impute colours to Sulphur and more probably then to Salt but in colours the matter is more difficult Aristotles Interpreters that bring colours from the mixture of the Elements proye nothing Therefore let the principle of colours be Sulphur or as Anshelme Boetius saith God himself who gives colours as well as shape to Jewels and the like for they come from the proper seminary of every thing Common Sulphur Petroleum or Naphtha Amber and Sea-coal have much Sulphur Gums and Rosins of fat Trees as Pine Fir tree Pitch Oyl and the like Fat 's of Beasts of which see Libavius Parte 3. singular He useth the word Bitumen generally as the Chymists use Sulphur The third Principle is Mercury somtimes taken for Quicksilver Ide Philos c. 8. somtimes for a Principle Salt and Sulphur Severinus saith it is added to the other Principles that by daily moistning of them to nourish them from decay by often action In defens contra an̄o c. 14. In Tyrocin Chymico Quercetan saith it is a liquor sharp and penetrable pure and aetherial and so saith Beguin But they agree not therefore Libavius writes that the modern Chymists describe Salt Sulphur and Mercury by Notes but when we ask what it is they consound all and say that Salt is in Sulphur and Mercury In exami Philoso vit and Sulphur and Mercury in Salt and Mercury and Salt in Sulphur and then he gives this definition Mercury is an essential Liquor drawn by the Chymists from a mixed body after the elementary impurities are separated opposite to the Sulphur and Salt of the same mixed body To speak my mind if there be any such Mercury it is a spiriful Liquor or Spirit which can scarce be separated from subtile Sulphur and volatile Salt to be seen by it self and though it be not seen it is no matter for pure fire is not seen nor air nor the spirit in Animals which are true parts of the Nature of things and the best Such things saith Scaliger deceive the vulgar eyes but wise men see them But I appeal to the Learned whether I be absurd in making these principles mixed with the Elements the common matter for the habitation of forms of the Natural bodies To conclude Metals Minerals Stones and Gemms and Plants are not simply mixed and have not only their forms from the forms of the Elements much less from a double exhalation which maketh the next matter of Meteors because they have better actions then are from Elementary qualities and a double exhalation But the Elements give them matter with the chymical Principles and may hence be better by the causes of many things then from the doctrine of Meteors We can clearly shew Salt and Sulphur from a Chymical separation though they are not manifest before We desire to know more of Mercury not of the Metal but of the Principle Aristotle attributes all to a Spirit which the Chymists do to Mercury for Quercetan and Beguin call it a substance or body to be passed through penetrated aethereal pure subtile quickning and the next instrument of the form and call it the Spirit of ancient Hermes The Chymists call that vital Sulphur which Aristotle calls the Natural heat and describe their Mercury as that it is in the Natural heat And this Sulphur and Mercury are so united in Nature that they cannot wel be separated but when the Sulphur is on fire Mercury flies away Also the actions from the whole substance and the hidden qualities are attributed to this Spirit as to the proper subject this in poysons is a venemous spirit in purges a purging spirit As for the original of these Principles some think them to be the first mixtures others to be peculiar natures in the first Creation concreted with other species of natural things to be of the Nature of the Elements He that will embrace the first opinion must hold that these bodies have nobler forms by which they are more noble then the Elements and from which other qualities
flow that are not in the Elements Exercit. 307. sect 20. so that is true of Scaliger Every form of any perfect mixture though it be not a soul is of a fifth Nature far different from the four Elements For God created forms and substances like that of Heaven put them into natutal bodies These opinions whether they be mine or other learned men do no whit diminish the splendor of Aristotelean Philosophy and Galenical Physick for he that supplies a defect overthrows not the former Chap. 12. Of Generation and Mixture THe former Principles being granted the modern Chymists lay down Generation Mixture thus They place the groud of generation in seeds and define generation thus It is the progression of seeds from their fountains and abysse and vital Principles into this scene of the world by which from invisible things they become visible and produce all the ornaments of all bodies and by this renovation of individuals they preserve the perpetuity of all species or kinds Ideae Philos cap. 8. And they add many things out of Severinus as that seeds have this power that they acquire to themselves things consentaneous or agreeable and that they are not in every subject but in such a hot cold moist or dry body or this or that Salt Sulphur or Mercury For the confirmation of which they quote Hippocrates Lib. 1. de diaetta saying That nothing wholly perisheth nor doth any thing arise that was not before c. And after he saith thus Light goes and is transmuted into Jupiter darkness into hell and light into hell and darkness into Jupiter c. For say they bodies being adorned with the signatures of seeds and clothed with comeliness represent the image of light but when they wither and loose the vigor of their seeds they are covered with darkness and therefore are called dark And Severinus saith That Operations are by mechanick Spirits which being not armed with knowledg are dispersed into naked vapors and smoak They assign three kinds of generation to the inferior globe namely of Animals Vegetables and Minerals They say that in Animals there is a seminal matter in the animal Balsom the vital Sulphur in the vital Spirit and Mummy which is alwaies in man Perfect creatures beget and are begotten onely of their own proper seeds Others from seed and putrefaction as Mice But Plants have a thicker body more slimy in respect of the seed of Animals and in them some parts resemble the testicles or stones by which the seed is prepared more perfect and more safely kept and such parts by that do propagate the seminal matter Hence it is that some plants propagate by their seed others by their roots others by other waies They make the generation of Minerals much different from the former Their seeds and speciesflourish in the seminal reasons of the matter and are kept in the Night of Orpheus and the Hell of Hippocrates or the Iliastrum of Paracelsus and there they expect their fate which is destinated and at times appointed they enter into the world with vital Principles and mechanick Spirits They deny not life to be in Minerals but prove it to be from the times of maturity from the fixed Periods of Paroxisms by orderly running of the veins from the agreeable compositions of their bodies from their tast and colour Also they acknowledg no greater art in living forms then what is in the variety of their colour scent and tast and that the colour of a Saphire and hardness of a Diamond are as wonderful as the organs of a Bat. As for the upper Globe there are in it certain distinct generations For in the Celestial Elements they say there are perfect Individuals that last with admirable vigor And that they flourish with aboundance of vital spirit which being fermented to a due exaltation and maturity go into the air with a spiritual invisible but abundant fertility and having acquired bodies as fit garments they produce their fruits They say some Stars are made to produce winds some Eastern some Western some Southern some Northern And these Stars have not only the first qualities but other vertues and properties And that there are Stars for rain hail snow lightning fair weather and for other Meteors That every month the Moon by a new generation produceth fruits and that there are vital principles of generation in the air that at appointed times are hot with the dispensation of their fruits They deny that the change of times are from the lower or higher position of the Sun or from the obliquity of its beams or from the direct influence of them but they say some Stars are for Summer others for Winter The Sun is the chief Summer star but if it should be without the rest there would be a perpetual Winter That the Moon is the chief Winter-star and that the Summer-stars do spring up as plants in the Spring and die again And that as Trees are not every year alike fruitful In lib. Meteo so those Stars are somtimes barren somtimes fertile Paracelsus makes the like generation of Winds Rain Snow Lightning Thunder the Rain-bow and the Morning c. This is their opinion of generation and they make a mixture accordingly they say the mover of mixture is a vital Principle adorned with Knowledg by the power of which the Divine offices of mixture are performed Severinus They say that Transplantation is an accident of generation as the faculty of the seed is strong or weak and as the spirits of seeds are subject That transplantations are seldom in perfect creatures and not in any but such as are alike in seed and Nature as Wolves and Dogs may mingle Horses and Asses but in such as the difference of Sexes is not apparent there are usual Transplantations They say that in Vegetables and Minerals Transplantations are companions of generation so Calamints turns into Mints because the seed is equivocal so there is the form of Darnel in Wheat but as a servant or companion which if it get outward aid will turn Master and bring in its own signatures See Severinus for more of this Of all these we thus think When they say that generation is the progression of seeds from their fountain and abyss into the stage of the World they tell us no news for it is the opinion of the most ancient Greeks not only of Hippocrates but of Hermes Tresmegistus Dionysius Aropagita Apollonius Thyaneus And this error came from their ignorance of the Worlds Creation from which every thing hath its Nature and Being Therefore they supposed that all things came forth into light from night hell and an invisible abyss and returned thither again But the Scripture teacheth otherwise Gen. 1. for God said Let the Earth bring forth fruit The herb that brings seed and the Tree fruit after their kind and it was so Let the Water bring forth living creeping things and let the Birds flie over the Earth in
the air Let the Earth produce Creatures after their kinds beasts and creeping things and it was so And that God blessed the Creation saying Increase and multiply Hence it appears that God by his power created the kinds of all natural things and gave them their forms and bodies He that made the Elements mixed them according to his Wisedom and joyned them with those close Principles Thus all things are multiplied by the divine blessing and preserved to this time so that the species of Plants and all living Creatures are only in their Individuals God at the Creation gave forms to all things and made them not of the Elements as some modern Writers say that know nothing but the Elements Therefore the forms of things come not from an abyss and take fit bodies by their Mechanick spirits but God in the Creation gave every thing its form In examine Philo. vit part 2. contra Paracel which multiply by his blessing The other opinions are bawbles like the gate by which Aeneas came from Hell Libavius and Erastus have written at large against them What they say of the superior Globe and its fruits and generations is absurd and ridiculous against both reason and experience the Stories of Lucian are more probable and Erastus saith right of Paracelsus The Principle upon which all his Doctrine of Meteors stands besides its prophaneness against Scriptures is so foolish and simple absurd and ridiculous and false that a man cannot without fear of disgrace rehearse them or speak of the confutation of them among wise men What they say of the generation of Plants and Animals may agree with Aristotle if they would allow that the species came not from an abyss or Hippocrates his Hell but the propagation came from seeds as that corporal things are made of incorporeal and incorporeal of corporal For they differ rather in words then sense from Aristotle and Galen because spirits somtimes are condensed into bodies and bodies are turned into spirits when vital and animal spirits are made of blood Their Doctrine of Transplantation is not to be disallowed altogether for it is probable by many things in Nature that the same form may be in a divers body or many forms may be in one seed but subordinate so that one be chief the other servants as appears in the silk-worm but every worm doth not breed from every plant and the forms of such worms are subordinate to the forms of the Plants and other Animals Exercit. 59. sect 2. exer 195. Scaliger and others shew what worms are from such and such Plants I spake in my Hypomnema Chap. 5.8 of Scotch Geese and also of the degenerating of Plants into other for it is certain that they are changed but not every one into any if that be observed there may be a cause given of many generations Some flie to an equivocal generation and putrefaction therefore it is questionable whether there be any generation truly equivocal without any seed Therefore consider that for the propagation of all Plants and Animals there is requisite an inbred matter rightly disposed by which the form may propagate it self but this preparation of matter is greater in some then others Most of the perfect Animals are generated from the womb by the mixture of the male and female seed Others lay eggs from which by heat external the chickens are hatched In ignobler Creatures and Plants generation is not tied to such straight conditions Some Plants onely by seeds sown in the earth do grow others by the roots onely planted others both waies others by slips and siences In some the seminal humor is throughout the whole plant so that any branch or root being taken off and set in the earth they will grow as Willows and Vines I heard from a credible person that from the foam of a mad Dog cleaving to a garment there arose little creatures like Dogs For this seminal principle of ignoble things lies long hidden in a tough clammy matter and resists external injuries and impressions and at length gets up and acteth Let this seed be called Analogical if not Univocal so long as the thing generated be not from putrefaction only Moreover it is not against reason and experience altogether that some seeds are ambiguous and have many forms so that one be chief the other subservient or that some seeds are disposed to divers forms as appears in silk-worms Therefore Averroes and his Disciples speak against reason saying that Animals from putrefaction are different in species from those that are from seed for they are not wholly destitute of seed nor can putrefaction alone produce any creature Since then no generation is without mixture things do not arise from a contention between the Elements but in the first Creation every thing receaved from God not only its proper form but also a body fitted thereunto and they keep this their Nature by the wil and blessing of the Creator to the last Therefore in the propagation of things a specifick form is required which the concourse of Elements and that rash mixture cannot make Therefore the form and soul is the architect and the first mover of every thing in mixture is that soul and form The common operator and instrument of Nature to nourish the vertues of things is the innate and imbred heat and spirit but the operator of mixture is the Divine command which was given to the Elements in the Creation namely that they should agree exactly among themselves for the generation of every particular as Erastus saith but he had said better if he had said that convenient matter had been attracted from the Divine commād by the vegetative soul of every creature for since natural things are not onely first produced in the Creation but stil mixed by the vicissitudes of generation and corruption he should have added that still in generation of things all things are directed by the form not by the mixture of Elements that agree for the constitution of every thing For the forms are the Divine and unchangeable Principle that determines all the actions and passions of natural things and they are as the instrument or hand of the wise Creator that gave them that efficacy at the first Creation then which nothing can be more wonderful The next thing to be considered is whether alwaies in the generation of things there be a resolution to the first Elements so that nothing is mixed but the Elements And whether no sour salt or bitter things be mixed Lib. de prisca medicina Hippocrates writes That a salt and sharp humor is made thick by concoction and mixture And this is so certain that even Vegetables partake of the Nature of Minerals as you may see in the Leaves of Oak and Bayberries Pomegranate peels green which dye a black colour from the Vitriol that is in them so that the Chymists offer to draw Vitriol from green Walnut-shells Lastly it may be doubted whether the first qualities are
immediately causes of mixtures For the force of hidden qualities is such to alter a body and of the spirits that they may not be excluded The Works of the Chymists shew this for when the spirit of Vitriol and Tartar are mixed there is presently a great change and they that have written so much for the first qualities dare not bring all the qualities of mixture from the first qualities to which Erastus ascribes all except position number and figure and the like Also we may doubt whether all other affections of mixture besides conformation may be referred to cold and heat But there are many affections in mixture which cannot be drawn from the first qualities and lest any should flie to the soul the Loadstone draws iron Rhubarb purgeth choler but this comes not in the Loadstone from the form or soul The Philosophers dispute much of the Nature of mixture and how the Elements remain in a mixture Exercit. 10. I confess I am of Scaligers judgment who defines mixture to be the motion of the least bodies to a mutual contraction to make an union For to the Nature of mixture it is requisite that by it a body be made one not only by continuation but by the form But it is very hard in this darkness of man to see how the union of the smallest things is made whether by breaking or mixture or whether they be quite abolished I think it fit that in mixture that the things mixed being united in small parts should act and suffer together by contrary qualities but not loose their forms wholly which if they be abolished there would not be an union of things mixable being changed but a corruption but that one form is made of all or rather all being mixed and made one abide under the Dominion of one superior form from which it is a species I leave it to others to dispute whether the forms remain whole or are broken this is certain that every mixed body may be changed into that of which it was first made and therefore the forms of the Elements are not abolished otherwise in resolution or putrefaction there would be a generation of new Elements Notwithstanding we must not think that the specifical form of every thing that gives its name and being comes from the Elements only for there is in every natural thing a more Divine Principle and Nature by which they are what they are and belong to such a species The Elements are only the matter of bodies and therefore cannot give the act or action This is the old opinion of the Ancients and chiefly of Democritus that said all things were made of atomes In Epist c. 1. Nor can we think that this excellent Interpreter of the World as Hippocrates calls him thought absurdly of atomes and the generation of things as we shewed at large in our Hypomnema 3. For the ancient Philosophers gave their opinions in dark sentences and therefore their Adversaries thought they said what they never thought and disputed Logically against Democritus who would have been perswaded by natural reason as Aristotle saith 1. De gen cor c. 20. for whatsoever is brought against the opinion of Atomes is not Physical but Mathematical as that of continuities of lines not to be cut and the like For Domocritus saith atomes are bodies nor doth he deny in theÌ„ the proprieties of Mathematical bodies nor by them doth he take off the Natural or Physical proprieties and when he saies That generation is by the concretion of those little bodies he denies not mixture but only will have either the Elements not to penetrate themselves or that we must not dispute mixture flie alwaies to the Elements and first matter but that of small bodies mixed before and constituted in their essence new mixtures may be made Lib. de prisc demic Hippocrates taught this when he wrote that not only Elements but salt bitter and four were mixed Now let us consider if such be the Nature either in respect of generation or corruption For when any thing putrefies or is burnt a smoak ariseth which the sight at a distance takes to be a continued body but it is many thousands of atomes confused as judgment shews Chymical operations shew the same especially sublimation where these atomes are gathered together in the alembick You may see the same in Spaws sharp waters where there are as it were Ice-sickles wheÌ„ the water that flows from the pipe is very clear and how can so thick a body be from so clear a water In such Mineral waters the stony matter was resolved into the smallest bodies which by meeting together make a hard body And truly digestions and concoctions in Plants and Animals is only a resolution of bodies to be mixed and a concretion of them again for the use of Nature of every one but the superior form directs all by the instrument of heat And here since we spake of resolution and concretion let us speak of fixation and flying away usually in Chymistry as it is said Make that which is fixed volatile and that which is volatile fixed and you have the whole matter this is chiefly good in Physick when the same thing being volatile is poyson and being fixed doth no hurt but is a safe medicine as Antimony Mercury Arsenick That is fixed which holds in the fire that volatile which endures it not but flies up by heat and fixation and flying differ from coagulation and rarefaction though they are somtimes confused That is coagulated which from a spiritual thin body becomes thick and touchable which every fixed body is not A rarefied resolved body is that which from a touchable thick body becomes spiritual and subtile for Chymists can make bodies of spirits and spirits of bodies There is also a difference of mixed bodies some are simply fixed as gold that flies not with the fire but grows finer by it and better Others are fixed respectively in comparison of spirits such as in a gentle fire are fixed but fly in a strong as iron Of this we shall speak at large when we shew how to fix Chap. 13. Of the Foundation of Medicine HItherto we have examined the Chymists Doctrine of the Nature of things now we that treat of their Philosophy which they endeavor to establish upon the aforesaid principles They call their Philosophy Vital because it is not taken from the Elementary material dead principles but is conversant about the explication of seeds and powers And this kind of Physick they prefer before Galens for he calls Galenists Elementary Philosophers and say they look through Nature Though there are many Peripateticks and Galenists that look not above the Elements yet all are not so as Scaliger Fernel Shenkius and others let them brag we wil examine how they agree with truth and experience For the foundations â—f Physick they require many things in a Physitian Paracelsus requires four things in him Lib. Parrgran 1. Philosophy A
and strong imagination yet it is never lawful to ask any things of the Devil or expect his help Nor is there any Example in Scripture that ever the Devil did any man good Certainly Crollius is very wicked in saying That true prayers in spirit and truth are the foundation of Cabalistical Magick For prayers are the worship of God according to the 5. of John and they must be according to his promises and will and this worship ought not to be prophaned with such wicked Speeches Now that natural saith he speaks of which is a power to do miracles and given equally to all men in the Creation is a meer lye For true miracles onely belong to the Church and those done by Infidels and Conjurers are from the Devil and are not true but lying wonders What Crollius writes of Imagination In Praefat. admonit are dreams of Enthusiasts none deny but there is great force in imagination but that it can do what Crollius mentions it is a meer fable and if Crollius could have cured diseases by imaginaon why did he spend so much time in preparation of Chymical medicines In a word concerning Crollius his Magick avoid it there is knavery in the Baker and under the honey of Chymical medicines there is a venemous gall Therefore beware least under the pretence of Natural Magick and Divine Philosophy and light of Nature you do not use Diabolical Magick which may be though you make no contract with the Devil for it may be made not only explicitely but implicitely An explicite contract is when one makes a Covenant with the Devil An implicite is when any useth such means with another who hath contracted with the Devil explicitely and plainly hath before used For though there are examples in Scripture that the Apostles ruled over the Devil and cast him out yet there is no example that any Saint used the help of the Devil for a good end to profit man And though it may be objected for Paracelsus that it is no inconvenience for any to get better medicines then are known from the Devil to cure incurable diseases yet I suppose it is neither safe nor religious and St. Chrysostome saies well That a man had better die then recover by such remedies God that wounded can heal therefore seek help from him alone There is a famous Example that it is not lawful to seek help from the Devil 2 Kings c. 1. in Ahazia 2 Kings c. 1. by which we are taught to seek for cure from God alone not from the Devil and we can expect no good from that great Deceiver Moreover the means in Magick are not ordinary nor natural as you may see in Paracelsus but are words characters waxed images and superstitious inventions of the Devil And that we may not use such superstitions that are suspected to have an occult contract from the Devil observe what follows For where there is neither miracle nor force of Nature nor Arts ingenuity there is a contract with the Devil whosoever he was that made it And when characters and unknown words are used that are obscure and do not cohere or agree or are holy but applied to another meaning or when Ceremonies of no force are used or the like there is a strong suspicion Lib. de occul Philos As when Paracelsus saies a man may be freed from diseases from inchantment if he put on an old shirt with the wrong side outwards He makes Astrologie the third piller of Physick Lib. 1 de Philos sagaci Lib. de aere lo. aq but he extends it too large comprehending all Magick under Astronomy and dividing it strangely As for Astrology if it be right and upon Natural principles we hold it necessary for a Physitian as Hippocrates shews And there are many reasons why a Physitian should not be ignorant of it Therefore I consent to the modern Physitians that say the Stars work upon inferior bodies not only by heat and light but by occult influences But here we are to seek and the strength of the purest Stars is not known And Paracelsus and Crollius should engage us if they would explain the consent between the upper and lower World more plainly But here they are at a loss with the Aristotelians and Galenists many whereof were good Astrologers and studied the force of Stars very much but ingeniously confessed their imperfections of whom Cardan saies well Astrolog aphor sect 1. aph 34. That Astrologie as it is most excellent so it is most difficult And the motions of the Stars can never be known perfectly nor the judgments from them c. Chap. 14. Of the strength of Imagination BEcause the effects of Natural Magick seem to the Paracelsians to depend upon Imagination not onely to cause diseases but to cure them and they shew wonders done by imagination from Philosophers and Physitians we shal here shew what the strength of it is But note first that those effects which are attributed to imagination do not immediately depend upon it nor doth the soul produce such effects by imagination For imagination is only a knowing power that hath an immanent action which goeth not forth to other things and imagination doth nothing effectually but know but the other powers vegetative and moving do act upon others And though the phansie concurs to local motiō as knowing it yet is it not the immediate cause of motion therefore it doth not act upon any body of its own or anothers nor doth it by any sort of motion alter move or change it But appetite or desire follows knowledge and then there is a prosecution or flight which is by a local motion Whose cause is a place moving power distinct from the imagination Therefore the humors are not moved of themselves or immediately by the imagination but only by accident stirring up the natural powers whose office is to move the humors and spirits to nourish the body The imagination directeth the humors and spirits to move towards this or that part and it determines the moving faculty that it may move the spirits and humors to this or that part as when one is lasciviously minded the spirits and humors go to the privities by which motion the body is altered not by the phansie of it self nor can the species of the phansie produce a real quality nor formality make an alteration because the formal and essential reason of it is only in representation and it cannot act beyond its force and perfection Therefore when some are loose bodied from the conceit of a purging medicine not taken it is not because the species of the purging medicine hath a purging force but because the moving natural faculty is drawn to consent with the imagination and stirs the humors which being stirred do provoke the expulsie faculty to stool especially if humors abound First it moves the desiring faculty or appetite and by the passions of the mind affects the body for the passions follow knowledg which causeth
the species received by the imagination they are ascribed to the phansie nor can the passions of the mind of themselves produce them as when Mulberries Warts and the like come from the imagination upon the child And it may fall out that the same signature may be upon the child from divers passions and a woman may bear a child somwhat like an Ape if she either loved an Ape and plaid with it or was frighted by one which is a sign that somthing else goes with determinate signatures namely the imagination which directs the conformation For the forming faculty alone immediately makes the whole child whether well or ill fashioned But the phansie somtimes seduceth the forming faculty and directs it to make such a thing as is not conformable to the nature of the seed but like that which is imagined And so it is said to be the cause of these marks concurring to determine them but this is hard to be explained and some are of another mind It is safest to conclude that the forming faculty is directed by the imagination by the species exemplarily or objectively as they say by objecting the species conceived to which as to an example or rule the forming faculty doth her work But if any wonder that the forming faculty which belongs to the vegetative should know this exemplary species let him understand that all the faculties in a man are powers of the same soul and have some communication among themselves although the manner how is not known plainly Then let him know that the soul doth not this by its own power but a power given by the Creator And though the knowing faculty differs from the forming yet they are in some things agreable for so all parts know and attract the nourishment But how the species being conceived in the brain should be carried to the womb is hard to be understood We may say that while the child grows to the mother and partakes of her life those things that move the powers of the soul in the mother may stir up the faculties in the seed also and more affect the child then the mother because her body is so perfect that it needs nothing but nourishment but the soul is still busie in forming the body of the insant therefore any external thing may easily be admitted to direct it or seduce it to do this or that Many arguments are for this so as the passions of the soul are not alwaies necessary but a fixed intention and imagination is sufficient to mark the child The Queen of Aethiopia conceived of a white child by only viewing the picture of Andromeda So Jacobs sheep marked their lambs by beholding and imagining the party-coloured rods and we see the same in other beasts These changes are in the time of conception and child-bearing but more usually when they are gone some time in which time the forming faculty is at work and busie to make the parts after conception But all marks are not made at all times at the end of the colours may change and the whole figure the foot may be like that of a Horse the head like a Dog or Hog in the last month this cannot because all parts are fashioned For when Nature hath once fashioned the child she cannot alter the figure divide or change the number of parts Nor can the imagination make impression of any changes but only such as the matter of the body is disposed to and the forming faculty is apt to make by Natures order she cannot produce true feathers scales or horns and the reason why these are rather stamped upon the child then the womb is because the forming faculty is not busie about the womb but the child Hence it appears that the phansie cannot act upon a strange body and although the imagination of the mother affects the child yet is it so joyned to her that it seems as a part of her Avicen Alchirus Crolâ—ius Therefore they all are out that think the fancy can affect strange bodies and they that would shew causes disagree among themselves Paracelsus is of their opinion and heaps one absurdity upon another and give reasons as weak as the rest They should have shewed that Phantasmes move another way then by representation nor doth the phansie do any thing but receive the species of things from the senses to judge and bring them to the understanding And how can the species and representation that onely are to represent the thing from which they came change or move any thing without a man Especially seeing the action of the phansie is immanent And as for the imagination of women with child and the marks upon their children by the fancy they only prove that the soul any way moved by the imagination may be the cause of peculiar motions in its own body Therefore what Paracelsus and Crollius have written concerning the imagination is not worth the refuting and to speak short the foundation of all Magical operations and the great Wheel of all Crollius his Magick is false and it is this opinion of the strength of imagination and sew modern Writers follow them This Magick is old nor is it better for that because it came from Plato Lib 3 de vit caelitus comparanda and the Aegyptians given to Idolatry the foundation of this was laid by Marcus Ficinus when he writes that by the application of our spirit to the spirit of the world by the Art of Physick and affection that deeds are cast upon the soul and heavenly good upon our affection But this union of the soul of man with the Angels and Spirits which is by imagination and the calling upon Spirits to do man service is the work and invention of Conjurers Chap. 15. of the Physiological part of Physick THough Severinus and the Chymists seem in many things to dissent from the Galenists yet they disser not much but teach almost the same things only they deliver themselves in other language First Contra Anonimum they make three Principles in man and Quercetan placeth theÌ„ in the three principle parts of the body He saith that the natural faculty which is seated in the liver hath its conservation and nourishment from salt which is the first radical Principle and the foundation of the rest That the vital faculty in the heart is sustained by a sulphurous liquor And the animal faculty is preserved by Mercury which is altogether aetherial and spiritual Then they make a twofold body in man the one visible of the four Elements and blood the other invisible This last is called by them The Starlick Man within incorporeal a kind of Gabal man a houshold God a visible shadow of the body a familiar a shade a little wise man a Demon or good genius The internal Adech of Paracelsus A ghost the Euestrum or presaging light of Nature which is a Prophet also the imagination which contains all the Stars in it self and knows all Stars and keeps
strong corroding humors which are divers should be distinguished with names taken from Sulphur or Salt when there appears any remarkable excess of any one humor For Hippocrates calls a defluxion from the head 4. De rat vic in acu sent 31. Lib. de vee Medici hot and nitrous and writes That men are not only fevorish from heat alone nor can that alone cause a disease but bitterness and heat and sharpness or saltness with heat and the like Nor is it strange that such things should be in the body when a man is fed with Plants and Animals which are nourished with plants and these have from the earth their nourishment which contains in it salt bitter and the like juyces and Mineral spirits which are derived into man whose altering force changeth them as much as it can but they can never be overcome by our nature Nature indeed labors to void them being unfit for nourishment and if they be retained and separated from the good blood and abide alone they hurt the body divers waies Galen and other Physitians own this who mention salt and nitrous humors and the effects of Salt are manifest in Catarrhs or Defluxions Some humors are called Aeruginous not that they are like Verdigreece as Erastus thinks but because there is the tast and force of corroding as in Verdigreece and other qualities Nor is it unprofitable to observe these differences of humors for they are of concernment for cures therefore there being great difference of humors as to their colours tast consistence and essence and they cannot be called at by the same name If the Chymists can here help us there is no cause why we should not observe them yet we must not cast off the old names of the humors for Rhubarb doth alwaies purge choler not Salt or Sulphur The Chymists speak diversly of the differences of diseases In labyrinth medic arr Paracelsus saich that there are two kinds of seeds the Iliastrum Cagastrum The Iliastrum is when the feed of the disease is from the beginning as of Apples Pears Nuts Cagastrum is that which is from corruption The diseases from the Iliastrum are the Dropsie Jaundies Gout c. Of the Cagastrum Plague Feavers Pleurisies But as I said diseases do not spring up from seeds but from preternatural causes in the body either bred therein or gathered Paracelsus hath another difference by which he constituteth five Beings of diseases First the Ens or Being of God In paramiro for he saith some diseases come from God The second being is an Astral Ens under which he comprehends not only diseases from the Stars of Heaven but such as come from the stars in Man that depend upon the stars of Heaven The third is a Natural Being when a disease by a fault in Nature and they consider Nature by their three Principles The fourth is a Mental Ens under which are comprehended all diseases from imagination in our selves or others and under this they comprehend Incantations The fifth kind is a Being of Poyson natural or artificial Here Paracelsus shews his ignorance in Logick and Philosophy and he never learned from the Metaphysicks what Ens or a Being is It is ungodly to say that any disease is from a Being of God And he speaks improperly in all the rest of his differences But we may bear with improper speeches so good things be under them Ideae Philos c. 14. Nor can we suffer what Severine saith in referring all diseases and cures to four Monarches The Epilepsie Dropsie Gout and Leprosie to every one of these he reduced certain diseases under the Epilepsie he placeth Catarrhs Palsies Cramps Megrims Melancholies Apoplexies and Suffocations of the Womb. Under the Dropsie Aposthems Jaundies Cachexy Under the Leprosie all Ulcers Under the Gout the Cholick Stone Toothach and Headach But it is evil to refer diseases that differ so in essence and causes to the same head Nor is this division to be admitted into coagulation and resolved diseases They say that some impurities come from the seeds whose fruit doth coagulate Others come from seeds whose fruit ends in flowing resolution those they cal coagulated these resolved diseases What Severine saith of the disease and fruits of the superior Globe hath many absurdities except they are explained otherwise then the words sound We grant that the causes of Epidemick diseases depend in a great part upon the Stars and their influence and arise from the air and spirits that we attract and breath in But that there should be any Opiate Arsenick Orpiment or the like or fruits of celestial bodies or resolutions of celestial seeds I cannot admit because matter of such corruptions which is in the air and drawn in by the breath to infect the body comes not from Heaven but is contained in the inferior World and the coelestial bodies may diversly stir dispose and mingle and alter them The modern Chymists dare not defend this Doctrine of Severine Quercetan searce mentioneth any seeds but saith In defensione contra Anoni That Mercury Salt and Sulphur have all sorts of vertues faculties and properties from whence come infinite varieties colours tasts and scents and the like which produce divers diseases from their distemper and the company of other things If Sulphur abound it brings divers inflammations and feavers besides other narcotick effects which the sleepy Sulphur produceth by its narcotick spirits which do the same thing that wine or the like doth which cause sleep not by cold but a narcotick Sulphur From mercurial sour and sharp vapors come Epilepsies Apoplexies Palsies and all kinds of Catarrhs From Salts he saith come corrosions inwardly Imposthumes Ulcers Dysenteries Bleeding and from the dissolving of them come heat of Urin and Strangury And from the variety of Salts come divers Ulcers Imposthumes Corrosions by their sharp and sour spirits also divers kinds of Colicks From Salts coagulated he brings Nodes Scirrhus Tumors and swollen Joynts and infinite sorts of Obstructions The best distinction of the Chymists is that from the three principles and causes of diseases if they would be constant therein or explain themselves for the matter is very intricate concerning Mercury For if they say every humor is not Mercury but the first and substantial humor which gives sense and motion to all parts it cannot be the cause of diseases But if Mercury be taken for the cause of a disease who will say that it is an excrement of natural Mercury and flegm And I see not how they can distinguish it from Tartar from which Severine saith Catarrhs do arise The differences of Salt and Sulphûr are manifest because sour bitter and falt matter is gathered in the body and vomited up Somtimes the humor is so sour in the stomach that before it is vomited up the teeth are set on edg by it The differences of Salts are plain in divers Ulcers as in the Scab Cancer heat of Urin and the like To this division belong
tartarous Diseases of which they speak often and many flie to that in time of ignorance they say then the disease is from Tartar but few explain what Tartar is Lib. de morb tar tar c. 1. Paracelsus rails against the Galenists because they call tartarous diseases sand or the stone because it is a Metaphorical appellation but in Physick we must speak properly and things must de denominated from their Nature which he doth not observe He saith the cause of this appellation is because an oyl and a water and a tincture are made of it which burns the sick as the Tartar of Hell therefore if the name be from the likeness of Hell fire it is taken from a similitude and is not proper Others extend the word Tartar larger then that it should be given only to the stone for they call a slimy humor by the same name which causeth the Colick corrosions and divers pains in the stomach Thus they cal divers things by the name of Tartar to which it doth not equally in reason belong and so is not proper But to the purpose agreeing about names let us see whether the Chymists and Dogmatists may be reconciled in this The Chymists have no clear definition of Tartar Lib. 2. de tar tract 1. c. 1. Paracelsus defines it thus It is stony disease or a bole or between a bole and a stone which hinders the effect and vertue of Nature Other Chymists say Tartar is that impurity in the nourishment under a resolved form that cannot be discerned but yet tends to coagulation and a stony Nature Some from Paracelsus say It is an excrement coagulated by its spirit Some Chymists seem to agree with the Galenists who say Tartar is a stone-making juyce or a matter by Nature apt to coagulate And this juyce is drawn from Plants with the nourishment and sent from Plants into Animals and then it hurts much when Nature is weak to concoct and void it They make four kinds of this Tartarous juyce Viscous bolare or like bole sandy and stony and hence come divers diseases in divers parts of the body First they bring most diseases of the stomach from Tartarous impurities when such a matter covers the sides of the stomach the vital spirits are obstructed which are the Author of all natural actions hence comes slow concoction compression loathing and the like and as the tinctures of the Tartarous spirits are stronger to wholly overcome the inbred spirits there follows want of concoction and nourishment But if these impurities have strange spirits with them they turn the nourishment into a strange nature and there is belching and stink and if they have vomiting properties as of Hellebore or Antimony they cause loathing and vomiting If they have the tinctures of Salts there is burning of the stomach gnawing and the like If of vitriolated Salt there is a Dog-like appetite Let us grant all this that we be not so unjust against the Chymists as Erastus Part 4. disp conâ—a para Yet this tartarous matter is not the onely cause of the hurt actions of the stomach for a hot or a cold distemper often hurts it Moreover from the opinion of Severine diseases breed from those tartarous impurities mixed or alone from the mixed come sulphurous stinking diseases thirst heat bitterness of mouth headach with cold and shaking called ordinary feavers But he thinks they come rather from their roots which are Niter with Sulphur Because he saith feavers have seeds and roots in which slimy and salt spirits with Niter are mixed with impure stinking dissolved Sulphur Therefore at set times when the mineral or matter of the disease begins to spring being nitrous Sulphur there is horror chilness panting and the like as the nitrous Sulphur differs As we are not in this enemies to them so let them be milder against the opinions of Galenists for first we must distinguish the seaver from the cause The cause is that matter which they call Nitrous Sulphur from the accession of which there is a hot distemper in the whole body by which all the parts are unfit for their offices and this preternatural disposition is called a feaver Nor must the name of humors be rejected for Niter or Sulphur are never vomited up or purged forth or sweat out but only humors Though we grant that the humors are set on fire by Sulphur we will not therefore reject the name of humors Scheunemamnus his opinion of the original of feavers is ridiculous he saith that a globe or bal of many Sphaeres like a Bezoar-stone is bred in the stomach or liver and thence come seavers and fits and when this ball is struck from Heaven it flames and smoaks and infects the air hence comes a little cold and trembling and then heat But this globe and its circles of which it is made ought to be very great because he writes that the patient shall have so many fits as are circles in it Against Severine I say the Colick cannot breed from a slimy Tartar mixed with stiptick or binding four spirits because he made one cause only of the pain of the Colick I agree with him about the name for the case is plain that the colick is from glass like flegm as Galen taught But if he make that the only cause he errs exceedingly because there are great pains from wind that extends the guts nor doth sharpness or wind cause pains but by stretching which being made to pass by a Clyster or two the pain ceaseth better then by the laborious Chymical medicines Ideo Philos 13. It is false that he saith the sharpest pains are only from the sharpest spirits of Salts he calls the pains from cuts burnings and stroaks Relolls But all men living do witness by sense that there is no greater pain then that from cutting and burning c. Severine proceeds and saies and describes the generations and differences of inflammations saying That the seeds of these diseases come to the matrixes not only in a liquid form dissolved but in a spiritual vapor and continual nutrication and digested fermentation and except the time of neaturity and separation which coming the spirits break forth and boyl And then the signatures that lay hid before in the spirits are explained colours tasts scents heat and other qualities And by nourishment daily attracted they make bodies agreable to the principles mattery slimy bloody coagulated dissolved stinking red black He brings the kinds of inflammations from the proprieties of the sulphurous spirits And Arsenick spirits make plague sores Orpiment spirits make Pleurisies not only in the breast but in the brain lungs heart liver spleen and stomach He accuseth Galen and other Doctors for saying That inflammations come from much blood violent exercise falls contusions And denies that these effects can come from these causes except some Arsenical seed cause the Plague or other the Pleurisie lying in the blood till it get an occasion to boyl For the breeding of ulcers
he saith thus If from the inbred Balsom weakned from error by immoderate diet in the mummy of the blood the Synoviae of flesh defect of separation come from impure matter the impurity being left which is full of corrosive salts if this happen often and then tincture be strong of the corrosive seeds and the mummy of the blood be transplanted they will bring in the roots of the flesh or Synovia and by constant nourishment from things of like impurity at a digested time they will produce fruit agreable to the roots He saith that salts of iron breed the roots and fruits of a Cancer in the flesh veins and members resembling the Anatomy of Mars and they dwell in the face lips papps breast and somtimes the womb The Herpes and Wolf have aeruginous roots near of kin to the Cancer and place themselves in the musculous flesh in the joynts and breast c. I shall not repeat more for brevity sake But many of these are false and absurd First he denies the causes alledged by the Galenists but every one may see them daily especially if they be in an impure body Moreover inflammations rise not as plants out of seeds but when bad humors are heaped up in the body if nature cannot expel them by usual waies she sends them to ignoble places where with blood gathered out of the vessels they are hot and putrefie hence comes pain and inflammation the skin discolored according to the variety of the humor And that which Nature doth every where she doth here also that is she makes divers quittors according to the humor the same is to be thought of the breeding of ulcers Nor are the Chymists to be totally rejected for their explaining of the differences of inflammations and ulcers though it may be objected against them there are divers effects of Arsenick Orpiment Vitriol if they be applied outwardly by things that appear in inflammations for animal Salt and Sulphur differ from vegetable Salt and Sulphur and things taken from the earth have a kind of alteration and the greater in Animals though they do never wholly change their Nature as you may see in Bubo'es Carbuncles Cancers and the like 2. De loc att c. 9. Concerning the cause of pain they say that the spirits of Salt dissolved causeth pain this we allow but it is also from burning cutting stretching as I said But I take it ill that he should reprove Galen because he denied that the names of tasts should be applied to pains Galen saies right That every sense hath its proper sensible therefore as colours cannot be perceived by the ears so tasts cannot be apprehended by the touch as they are such yet Galen denies not that things that are tastable as they are salt and sharp do diversly afflict the touching but this is not from a savor as it is tastable but as it is sharp which may be tasted also which Severine confessed therefore he unjustly accuseth Galen Also it is evident that differences of pain come from the nerves in the part being more or fewer Severine saies Those parts are most pained in which are the sharpest spirits of Salt which go outwardly at the mouth of the stomach the guts But he is out for parts covered with nerves and membranes have the sharpest pains Scheuneman in his Book called Reformed Physick or his Hermetical Penny laies down ten chief Causes of diseases as spiritual Mercury burnt Mercury sublimate Mercury praecipitate Mercury Sulphur coagulated Salt calcined Salt dissolved and Salt reverberated But he shews no cause of these Principles they are new beings which he no waies proves and therefore he useth new words nor plain Greek nor Latin as Pneumosus or spiritual Mercury Cremosus which is we suppose from Cremare to burn At last he propounds an aetherial Spirit-like fire the governor of all actions the radical moisture that bedews the whole body the spirit of the radical humor the quickning substance and immediate instrument of actions the aetherial spirit author of concoction and digestion But these being not sufficient he adds a fourth the most pure white sweet pleasant panting the cherisher of the heat of the whole body c. which he calls congealed Sulphur the first moisture or Virgins milk that bedews the body and refresheth it the first subject of generation also a moist and soft substance a fifth spirit which he calls Sulphur dissolved But here we admire He propounds so many Spirits and Principles and proves not in the least whether they are in being or be so many He brings inflammations from Sulphur congealed and burned but in the fifth Chapter he brings the Quinzy and Pleurisie from Mercury sublimated Then he brings Feavers from Sulphur fired So Hippocrates and Galen call them by the name of Fire but he mixeth false things with them What he saies of dissolved Sulphur is not wholly to be rejected for the Galenists say that pleasant vapors sent to the brain cause sleep nor when he saies That Narcoticks cause sleep not from cold but from Sulphur But he errs in saying all sleep is from a moist Nature and soft substance that bedews all the parts for who will say that the venemous quality in the Plague which produceth deep sleep is such In that he brings Fluxes and Dysenteries from congealed Sulphur and dissolved he differs from other Paracelsians that say they come from Salt which is more probable But he accuseth the Galenists false for saying excrements are diseases For the Paracelsians do so and Severine that saith he saw a Feaver cast out by vomit Then he makes diseases of Salt threefold calcined dissolved and reverberated Salt He saith the calcined Salt is the Balsom of life and if it melt in the body it causeth Dropsies Oedema and Cachexy He saith dissolved Salt is a liquid body of a fat tast that coagulateth and astringeth that nourisheth all with its good relish and preserves all and is therefore called the meat and drink of the Gods c. and whatsoever wants this Salt is quite unsavory He saith the reverberated Salt is the Lixivium or Clenser of all Nature that takes away filth To this Salt he brings the Itch Scurse Morphew Pox Scurvey Though we disown not the Salts of the Chymists which the resolution of bodies shews Scheuneman did well in a few things but adding some falsities he made the rest suspected He gives no reason why so many Salts nor is it needful that what compounds the body should cause diseases Moreover he is not constant in describing the kinds of Salts as appears when he derives all tasts from calcined Salt and that it is now bitter then salt now four and then sweet yet in another place he brings the tast from dissolved Salt saies nothing is savory that wants dissolved Salt Other Chymists are more right as we have shewed in the Chapter of Salts Moreover he errs much in shewing the causes of Sweat Cachexy Dropsie and the like That Sweat hath
Salts have power to dissolve others to coagulate therefore they say that humors coagulated by Salt are to be cured by Salt dissolveth And they say that a feaver from burning Sulphur is not cured by burning Sulphur but by sharp Sulphur that may coagulate these Spirits that are on fire and allay them De prisc mat med c. 3. 3. and keep them burning Quercetan proves this by gun-powder for though Salt-peeter and Sulphur are easily set on fire yet both have a sharp Spirit with which if you touch the pouder it will flame no more Therefore in one respect the like cures the like and in another the contrary the contrary for between humors and things that dissolve humors there is a familiarity But in respect of the taking away of the disease and the causes contraries are required And thus much of the consent and dissent between the Chymists and the Galenists He that considers this wisely Lib. 4. Epist ad Andr. Blauv wil find that Chymical medicines are not to be neglected for Galenical nor Galenical for Chymical for as Mathiolus writes None can be an ordinary Physitian that knows no Chymistry and he is admirable that knows what is Divine in Diseases in Medicines and Nature and finds out the fountains of actions all which may be done by Chymistry but he that cleaves onely to the first qualities in things cannot come to this Other things that respect the constitution faculties and actions the causes and differences of Diseases and Symptoms the Signs Prognosticks and Method of Curing may be found in Hippocrates and Galen and their Interpreters He that neglects these is an Emperick and no Physitian AN APPENDIX Chap. 19. Of the Constitution of Chymistry IN this Appendix we suppose what Libavius wrote at large and Beguin in short and what we mentioned in the fifth Book of Institutions That though Chymical Opeperations and Medicines are there added yet here I will plainly lay down as in a Table the whole Nature of Chymistry and its Constitution from the places alleadged and add some admonishments This I shall do without calumniating any or detracting from them For two may differ in opinion And still in friendship keep communion All Sciences and Arts as they are found ought to stand upon some Principles that reasons may be given of things done in them otherwise it is rather an ignorance then a science yet Chymistry the most noble useful Art hath few things fortified with reason and brought from certain Principles for there are many proceedings and Forms of Operation of which few teach the causes and Principles so that it seems to be an Art without an Art But as Physick so Chymistry is wholly subject to the natural Science and must follow the Laws of Nature in working so that there may be a mutual consent between them both In the first Chapter of this Tractate there is the Subject Definition and a twofold end of Chymistry But laying aside the former end we shall here speak onely of the Constitution of Chymistry as it serves a Physitian and helps him to good Medicines and we shal propound some things in Operations which may serve for the last end A Chymist to obtain his end must have some means or Mediums which are Chymical operations and instruments by which he worketh Of which we shall speak in order As for the instruments the chief are fire or heat the Menstruum air and water but that agents may be applied to the patients there are required furnaces glasses and many other vessels We spake elswhere of furnaces glasses and other vessels and of luting Inst l. 1. part 3. sec 2. c. 11.12.14 and we added instruments for other operations And Chap. 2. we spake of fire and heat The Menstrua are whatsoever things serve for solution extraction and separation of bodies and this name is commonly given to liquors which cast upon bodies have an actual force to dissolve or extract somthing out as common Water distilled Waters Dew Spirit of Wine Turpentine distilled Vinegar and things distilled in it Spirit of Salt Niter Vitriol Aqua fortis and Regia of which in the place of my Institutions cited We may bring all these liquors into three heads some are watery some have Salt others are oyly bodies are not dissolved but by their proper dissolvers that answer to their nature The watery bodies are like water and are dissolved and extracted by watery Menstrua Sugar and Salt which melt in water dissolve salt bodies and no other Things spiritual are dissolved by Spirits salt things by salt Spirits and extracted by oyl and fats Metals and Stones by Aqua fortis and Regia and the like liquors And without Salt no Metal is dissolved because all Metals are of a salt nature therefore the first melting must needs be by Salts Mercury dissolveth gold not so much by corrosion as by similitude or an occult quality And Aqua fortis though it be very corrosive dissolves not Rosin Wax or Pitch but they are dissolved in oyls and fats Therefore get the proper Menstruum for dissolving of very thing Some understand by the word Menstruum not only liquors but other dry bodies which dissolve things as Salt Niter Sulphur which being added to Metals or Stones and resolved in a fire of reverberation insinuate into the bodies applied and dissolve them Thirdly Chymists must have air which conduceth two waies namely as it is moist and hath waterish vapors and as it is cold as it is moist it serves a Chymist when it is mixed with things by nature dry and makes them of a moist consistence this is when air gets into Salts in moist places and makes them melt And in some distillations the moist air causeth the Spirits that are by nature dry and come forth like clouds to turn moist as in Oyl of Sal Gem made by a bell in Spirit of Salt and Vitriol and the like Also air serveth in respect of its coldness for cold by accident and binding of Homogeneal bodies doth congregate therefore Salts sooner grow together in water then in heat Fourthly water is an instrument of the Chymists not only as a Menstruum to dissolve and wash but to mix it self with dry Spirits in a moist air I should add Earth and the like but for offence therefore in making Spirit of Salt and Niter Poters Earth Bole and sealed Earth are used In distilling some Oyls the pouder of Bricks Sand and Ashes are used First that the body to be distilled may be as fine and small as may be and be better healed Secondly least the glass should be broken by things that easily dissolve as Niter another body is added to make it dissolve gently Also the Chymists use other instruments for some operations as Oyl of Tartar to precipitate Pearl and Coral being dissolved and other for others but I doubt whether these may be added to the former instruments As for Chymical operations they are diversly divided and I let
not used alike of all but let us not fall out about words but things There are three sorts of Chymical works The first is when nothing is separated from the whole but a thing is changed and made more useful and a new manner of substance or quality is induced they call this a Magistery but it may be called unchanged or impersect The second sort is when that which is separated from the whole or extracted which may be called a Secret or separated body or an Extract by the name of the species The third is that which holds the Compounds for the Chymist doth not only prepare Simples but Compounds some as Elixirs Balsoms and the like To the first kind belong first things that of solid become liquid as Oyls made by a deliquium the making of which is in my Institutions Lib 5. par 3. sec 2. c. 14. As the Oyl or Liquor of Tartar and other Salts which are not properly Oyls but whole bodies impregnated with their salt Menstruum and therefore melt in the moist air to this is drinkable gold referred and other potable Metals The Chymists dispute whether Metals may be reduced into a liquid form of themselves I suppose the liquidity is from the Menstruum mixed because all Metals are of a dry nature and they that think otherwise let them shew that there is any moisture in them if not it is not in the power of art that these dry parts of Metals and their dry fumes should be turned into water And though the Chymists add nothing yet if it be left in the moist air it gets into it as appears by Vitriol calcined Of this kind are the dissolvings of Pearl Coral Crabs-eyes White vomiting Vitriol and pouder and chalks of Metals The golden Sulphur of Antimony Crocus of Mars and other Metals which is made only of the substance of Metal resolved But here we understand things plainly Homogeneal and from which nothing is separated but only a new kind of substance is induced The second kind of Chymical works is called the Secret or separated Body where the whole body is not presented but a part To this belong purified Bodies burnt and calcined all the chalks of combustible things and Salts drawn from them Also Extracts and Tinctures or Essences Also Distillations as Waters Spirits Oyls properly or improperly so called Sublimates and Flowers when the whole body is not sublimed but part of it remains But it is absurd to make Extracts or Quintessences or Oyls of all things especially of substances plainly subtile or Homogeneal There is an example in Pepper whose corns in a cold stomach when the liver is hot are good because they heat the stomach and hurt not the liver but the Extract or Oyl of Pepper is not good because it goes presently to the liver and hurts it The third kind of Chymical work is of Compounds Lib. 5 par 3. sec 3. c. 5. to this belongs the Elixir of which in my Institutes These are the differences in general of Chymical operations of which there is great variety according to the variety of bodies as Vegetables Animals Minerals and Metals for every thing is not made of every thing but one thing of another therefore the Chymists must understand what may be made of every thing For Vegetables to this belong whole Plants and their parts as of herbs shurbs trees leaves flowers seeds c. of these are made depurated Juyces Spirits Oyls Extracts and Tinctures and Salts you may ad juyces to these in the preparing that they may last better as Wine or a little Spirit of Wine We shewed in our Institutes the way of making simple and compound Waters and Spirits Lib. proxime Citato These are made of green or dry Plants green Plants we distil in Balneo or if they be juycy we make juyces and clarifie them in the embers and distil them if they be less juycy we add water and distil them in a still or add water and press out the juyce and then distil it But when we make Spirits fermentation is made first A question may arise whether Oyls and Spirits differ in Essence This we leave to every mans judgment Grosser Oyls made by burning of bodies are of woods and barks as of Box Guajacum because in these the oyly substance cleaves so close to the wood that if you boyl it it cannot be drawn out Then observe in Extracts that every Simple will not afford an Extract for little is extracted from things that have spiritual parts and that have spiritual and oyly Waters as Rosemary Mints but they whose strength is in a slimy juyce and are not volatile have more extract as Gentian Calamus Aromaticus Carduus and the like We said that Salts are made of Plants but some do it only to delight the eyes Inst lib. 5. s 3. c. 5. and not increase the strength They make Salts in Crystals and somtimes they pour Aqua fortis upon Salts vulgarly prepared as in making Tartar vitriolate this is reprehended from Salts of Plants there is also a Spirit as we shewed to be made C 5. Things called Faeculae belong to separations made of Plants Of Drops and Rosins and Gums are made Spirits and Oyls and an Extract of Scammony called a Rosin and it is pure Scammony separated from all its impurity as the Extract or Balsom of Aloes Also there is flour of Benzoin sublimed From Tartar there is a cream of Crystal a Liquor Spirit and Oyl Salt the Secret or great Magistery is made the same way as the Magistery only instead of spirit of Wine we use distil'd Vinegar Moreover the cream and Crystal of Tartar is not a pure Salt because it dissolves not in cold water and if it be distilled in a Retort it affords oyl also That called oyl of Tartar is not its proper Oyl but its Salt dissolved by Deliquium From Coral a Magistery is made and many talk of a tincture of Coral but if it be considered the best Chymists dare not promise it to be true but it is the Solution or Magistery of Coral mixed with some Menstruum Chymists work also upon Animals and their parts as Blood Flesh Horns Bones Stones Pearls Perch stones Crabs eyes Galls Of Honey is made a Water or Spirit of Wax there is made an Oyl and from Butter From fats of Beasts an Oyl is distilled which is hotter and drier then they Of Urine is made Salt from Blood only a fixed and volatile salt water and oyl but they are not safely given inwardly by reason of their stink nor outwardly for other things may supply Some make Mummy of blood which is nothing but that fibrous part of the blood and the beginning of flesh separated from the serous and dried in the Sun Also Mummy is made of Mans flesh And a Water is distilled from hearts of Beasts and from Horns There is Physick made also of Mans Skull and other bones burnt or a Liquor
Oyl or Volatile Salt by a Retort From Stones bred in mans body there is made a Salt and Oyl and a Magistery from Pearl Crabs eyes Perch stones but I doubt that the spirit of Pearl is mixed with a Menstrual Salt therefore I suppose that Pearl vulgarly prepared is wholsomer in many diseases As for Minerals and Metals they are objects of Chymistry Of Amber there is an oyl Of Sea salt or other a Spirit or Oyl Of Niter is made Sal Prunellae From Sulphur there is flour by sublimation of this flour there is a Tincture and Balsom of Sulphur with spirit of Turpentine and Wine and of the same flour is Lac Sulphuris made The Chymists talk much of the oyl of Talk but of it self it is not made into a liquor but being calcined with a strong fire or with Niter and Vinegar sprinkled upon it the volatile Salt in the Vinegar unites it self with the caclined Talcum and then melts he that can shew better let him From Gemms are made Magisteries then Tinctures but if any coloured Liquor be from Gems it is rather the dissolving of the Gemms then an extracted Tincture Things made of Minerals and other metals are not so easie we shall speak a little of some of them From Vitriol by distillation is first drawn a Flegm and Spirit Spirit of Vitriol is thus made Take Vitriol as much as you please calcine it yellow pour enough of the spirit of Wine upon it to make it like a Paste distil it rectifie the spirit when it is extracted thence make a salt of Vitriol by pouring hot water upon the Caput mortuum or Lees. I see no cause why this may not be counted a Salt Some labour to make a green spirit of Vitriol Antimony first may be calcined and then it is called Crocus metallorum from its Saffron-colour You may make flour of the same by calcination There is also a Stone or Glass made of Antimony Some make a Tincture a Regulus and a Butter Antimony is made Diaphoretick and loseth its purging quality by the mixture of fixed Salts this is done when Antimony is often melted with Niter for Niter gives another kind of substance to Antimony and makes it of volatile fixed this is so hard as Crollius writes wittily the art of Fire cannot take away the force of causing Vomit from Antimony though many have attempted it because they abhor that quality of vomiting nor hath any Chymist this preparation though many brag of it for if the vomiting quality be gone the purging quality must go with it Nor is it an argument because some vomit not after Antimony is taken by them for that is from the strength of the stomach or the disposition of the humors to be evacuated Let us speak a little of the Physical use of Quick-silver this only shews that one thing keeping the same internal form and nature may have divers external forms it may be dissolved sublimed precipitated poudered made to flour-like silver into glass to be like a metal coagulated and changed and many waies transformed in divers liquors yet so that it easily comes to its old nature flies away and is fixed nor is there any heterogeneal part that may be separated of it are made first many precipitates of which there are many descriptions some call it Turbith others distinguish it Also there is Mercurius vitae Crollius cal'd it the flour of the butter of Antimony but wrong Of the same is made a Bezoard Mineral then there is an ordinary Sublimate and a Mercurius dulcis the secret of Coral is a kind of Sublimate Also there is a Silver flour made of Mercury In Apocalyph hermetica and waters oyls and spirits Libavius hath described the Mercury waters As for other metals some are fixed others not the fixed are Gold which alone loseth nothing though long in the fire and Silver which because it is more fixed then others is counted fixed as Gold we shewed in our Institutes the calcination of metals by fire and a Menstruum Lib. 5. p. 3. s 3. c. 5. 6. From Lead is made Saccharum Saturni if this be put into a Retort and distilled there is made a liquor called oyl of Lead Of Tinn is made a Crystal and oyl or liquor Of Steel is made Crocus martis of which there are divers descriptions and tinctures If Vitriol be dissolved in water and spirit of Vitriol it is after coagulated into Vitriol Vitriol is made of Copper called Vitriolum veneris Of Silver is made a Tincture There are many disputes of drinkable Gold but I suppose that what is sould for potable Gold is only the Magisteries mentioned and Gold dissolved into the smallest parts and mixed with a menstruum divers menstruums are carried about the force of dissolving in all which lies in the Salt And Gold is to be brought to that pass that it may be dissolved in spirit of Wine or other liquor which may be done by divers Menstruums And in all the end is that the body of Gold being thick and compact may be resolved into very fine atomes that being taken in it may with more ease exercise its force upon the body Therefore first they use stronger then weaker menstruums and if any menstruum be an enemy to nature it is separated by the fire or by washing But then the Gold doth not of it self dissolve into a liquor but by reason of Salt that is mixed with it from the menstruum FINIS
doth the Chymist transmute the thing but makes one thing of another by the power of nature As that which is extracted from Rhubarb in the Spirit of Wine or other liquor is the same in number and species with that in which the force of purging depends in Rhubarb being whole And so we grant that as he that gives butter doth not give all the milk so he that gives the Extract of Rhubarb gives it not all but onely that part in which the force of purging lieth Therefore medicines made by solution are not of the same species with the whole but are of the same kind with the parts of the whole from which they were made Let us conclude thus he that will be a true Physitian needs not only medicines to cure as an Emperick but he must follow method and his indications otherwise he will do more hurt then good for the abuse of the best thing is the worst Therefore Erastus saith well He doth least hurt in most diseases Part. 4. disput contra Parac that useth vulgarly prepared Medicines but he doth much hurt that gives Chymical Physick where it is not needful or gives them not aright This is to teach young Physitians that think themselves wiser then others and neglect all vulgar remedies approved by long experience and use only Chymical medicines lately invented and not well approved and so get a fame And to teach some Galenists that being ignorant of Chymistry yet to seem inseriour to none give dangerous Chymical medicines not knowing their strength and preparation The Chymists offend in this at this time who being ignorant of all other parts of Physick yet having a little skil in Chymical operations contemn other Physitians and proclame their own perfection and so with the Cobler they go beyond their last Let us now discuss the Controversie whether we must use contraries or things like for curing diseases It is an old Axiom Contraries are cured by contraries whence Hippocrates defines Physick to be addition and substraction that is to add things defective by the like and to substract or take away what aboundeth and happens to the body besides nature by the contrary For curing is a motion from a disease to health Arist 5. metaphys and motion is respect of a contrary The modern Chymists say that like cures like and when there may be a twofold similitude with the disease and with nature they understand both because Hippocrates saith Nature is the Physitianess of diseases and remedies are in vain when she resisteth Hence Galen shews that the vital indication is to be preferred before all therefore things are to be given which are like and familiar with nature Then they think that things alike are to be given in respect of the disease and its causes for purges attract vitious humors by the similitude of the whole substance and Alterers must be like to the part to which they are applied and there are proper medicines for every part some for the heart others for the brain and liver Then they say that diseases arising from Salt are cured by Salts and those from Sulphur by Sulphur But this Controversie is rather in words then things First they agree in this that alwaies there is a care to be had of the strength and it must be preserved by its like nor doth the other Axiom oppose this namely That contraries are cured by contraries For here we must distinguish between a vital and a curing indication in species And when Hippocrates saith Contraries are cured by contraries he speaks not of a vital Indication but of taking away what is preternatural and must be only ment so Hence it is that the patient desires contrary things to the disease as when he thirsteth he desires drink which is the cure of thirst for it is not the disease that desires remedies as the thirst doth not require drink but the thirsty and so by this general rule whatsoever is besides nature is to be taken away Nor do the Galenists deny that medicines are to be chosen which are familiar and proper to the part affected which familiarity is in similitude and an occult Sympathy Thirdly I suppose the Dispute is not of the contrariety of Alterers nor is there any Paracelsian so simple that will give a hot remedy as hot against a hot disease as so or thinks that a dried body as such is to be more dried For experience is against them and sense not onely in men but beasts who in great heat require to be cooled and in cold to be warmed Therefore the Axiom of Hippocrates remains unshaken which Galen confirms Lib. 9. meth c. 15. That the Remedies of contraries are contrary And though the Galenists contend among themselves about this and some would overthrow it yet hitherto they have not Therefore the Controversie remains about the causes whether remedies must be like or contrary unto them If by contrary we understand whatsoever is effectively so or that can produce an effect contrary to the preternatural affect I suppose the Chymists will not be against us for they give their medicines for that end namely that the cause and the disease may be taken away and not increased Nor do any of them deny that of Hippocrates 3. Aphor. 22. That diseases from fulness must be cured by evacuation The question then is How ought medicines to be against the causes of diseases according to internal strength and nature and substance Here lies the great wheel of the Controversie for the Paracelsian Chymists refer diseases or the causes of them to their Principles and cal some Sulphurous some Salt and some Mercurial the Sulphurous they say are to be cured by Sulphur the Salt by Salt and the Mercurial by Mercury if Sulphur be on fire it must be quenched and in this they admit of contrarieties but only by sulphurous medicines and so they think of salt and tartarous diseases as the stone which is to be cured by Tartar Hence the stones in Cattel and other Creatures are good to break it and the Jew-stone in the stone of the kidnies bladder and roots of Butchers-broom Smallage Marshmallows and so they say that the disease alwaies denotes the remedy In this the Galenists and Paracelsians seem to differ let us labor to reconcile them And first most Galenists to allow that Purges do attract foul humors by a familiarity of substance which doth not overthrow that old Axiom that contraries are cured by contraries For they are alwaies effectively contrary for the disease is alwales taken away by contraries mediately or immediately by it self or by accident and though Rhubarb attract choler by the likeness of its substance yet it causeth choler to be purged therefore Aristotle writes well 1. De gen ercor c. 7. the patient and the agent are the same in general and alike but unlike in species and such are contrary Nor do the Chymists deny contrariety when â—hey say Salt cures Salt for some