But now a Form depends upon Matter in every if any of its Operations Again Thirdly the Soul is not one with the Body neither in Indentity as a Substantial Act according to the Peripateric Philosophy is the same with the â—ubstance not by inclusion or inherence as a Mode or Accident is one with its Subject but only in Composition as Two United Parts are one which still retain their proper Essences and can exiâ—t a part So that the Soul is an Essential part of the Composiuâ—um and not the Form thereof Lastly it is evident that the Specific difference and distinction of Man is taken as well from one part as from the other Man differs from Angelic Beings in his Body in his Soul from Inanimate Creatures yea in his Soul there is something which distinguisheth him from Angels and in his Body whereby he differs from other Bodies And as these two parts are so fitly composed and ordered that they make one compleat Being there are some particular Forms Properties and Modes which discriminate him from all other things in the whole System of this habitable Orb as Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tureri Jussit erectos ad sidera tollere vultur c. Now the definition which Aristotle gives of the Soul is far from explicating the Nature thereof Aristotle's Definition the Soul vidiculous and Pedantic neither is it any way satisfactory but Ignotum per ignotius explicans explaining an unknown thing by a thing abundantly more unkown and that is this Anima est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive actus corporis Physici Organici vitam habentis in potentiâ The Soul is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or an act of a Physical and Organic Body having Life in Power An unintelligible Coacervation of Non-sence for who can interpret the meaning of Aristotle's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I cannot Imagine unless he do as Hermolaus a Famous Barbarian did who when he had got some Society and Colloque with the Devil the Devil demanded of him What he should do for him He said he desired nothing more than that â—e would explain unto him the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aristotle's Definition Yea I can truly say concerning this with a Late Author in â—â re nemo crassius Aristotele peccavit qui talem protulit anima definitionem quae omnibus plene rebus corventrâ—t veluti commune emplastrum vulueribus omnibus inedetur praeterea quid nobis distincti per actusvocem innotescit nihil amplius me Hercule quam si quis lucem definiat actum corporis lucidi calorem actum corporis calidi In this thing no body hath more grosly erred than Aristotle who brought forth such a Definition of the Soul which is applicable almost to all things and as a Common Plaister heals all Wounds Besides what would he have us to understand by the word Act Nothing more truly than if anv one should define Light to be the Act of a Lucid Body and Heat the Act of a Calorific Body How manisest an Ambiguity saith a Learned Writer and how great an Obscurity is there in the word Act or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some translate perfection Such definitions as these are so far from augmenting our Knowledge and encreasing our Literature that they detrude us into inextricable Laby rinths and obnubilate those things which in themselves are evident Having thus laid down the reason why we cannot Assent to the Definition of Arstoile it is now incumbent upon us to produce the true and genuine definition of the Soul The true Definition of the Soul Its Essence consists in Cogitancy which is this The Soul is an Incorporeal Cogitant Substance or a Substance of a Spiritual and Incorporeal Nature whose Essence consists in Cogitation This Definition is very comprehensive and very intelligible The genus here ascribed to a Soul is al Substance it is not a Model an Accident a Form or Quality but a Being of a self-subsisting Nature It is a Spiritual and Incorporeal Substance not an Igneous Fiery Flammeous Avery Aetherial or any blementary Substance but a Substance of higher Nature It borrowed not its Origen from Matter nor derived its Rise from any Corporeal Being its very Essence and formal Reason is Cogitancy It never ceaseth from perfoâ—ming the Action of thinking be the Body never so profoundly Dormant be tho Animal Spirits never so Entoxicated be the Brain never so much Stupified the Soul is still Active Cogitating Ruminating or â—ontemplating it may be troubled and diverted from being intent in it Conceptions but the Act of thinking can never be impeded neither can any thing put an end to its Cogative Operations There is no Narcotic Dose can cause the Soul to sleep nor any Anodyne Medicine to Eutoxicate an Active Spirit No for when the Ventricles of the Brain are Obstructed by Opium the spissified Juice of Soporiferous Poppies or when the Spirits are Locked up by Laudanum a more refined and rectified Medicine the Soul is so far from being attached by the Narcotic Virtue thereof that it is hereby rendered more intent in its Operations abstracted from Matter When the Body is quiescent Cogitancy hath no dependance upon the Body it is not so diverted by sensible Objects as it is in vigilance when some External Objects do always present themselves to the Organs of Sensation CHAP. III. Of the Origen of the Soul HAving laid down the true Definition of the Soul and rersised the falsity of Aristotle's Desinition proved it to be spurious and illegitimate in the precedent Chapter We now proceed to in Rie and Origen and here we have to deal with a two-fold Antagonist Teh First are Those that suppost the Soul to prae-exist that is was created in the beginning of the World and so had a Subsittance long before it was united to the Body The others are those that ussert that the Soul is propagated extraduce or generated of the Soul of the Parents If the first Hypothesis were true That the Soul doth not praexest the Soul would have some remembrance of its former condition the things which it had cognizance of before it was incarcerated in the Body as the Platonists imagine would certainly be now recorded for the Memory is a faculty of the Soul and essential to the same And altho the Artcients did judge it altogether incongruous to bring God upon the stage perpetually Cudworth's Intellectual Systeme of the Universe and make him immediately interpose every where in the Generation of Men by the miraculous Productions of Souls out of nothing yet if we well consider we shall find that there may be very good reason on the other side for the successive Divine Creation of Souls namely that God did not do all at first that ever he could or would do and put forth all his Creative Vigor at once in a moment ever afterwards remaining a Spectator of the consequent results God might also for other
good and wise ends unknown to us reserve to himself the continual exercise of his Creative Power in the successive production of new Souls The other is Neither is it propogated Extraduce that the Soul is propogated Extraduce from the Soul of the Parent but the absurdity of this Opinion is evident enough from these following reasons Several Arguments against the Souls Propagt 1977. 1 This Hypothesis supposeth the Soul of the parent to be Discerpible and so to Communicate its own Essence to the Constituting the Soul of the Foet us which can be granted to no Incorporeal Being 2 It supposeth multitudes of Souls daily Created which never come to perfection as in Abortions and Effluxes of Seed and this suppofition cannot but too much derogate from the Wisdom of the Divine Architect 3 Such is the Genesis of any thing as is the Analysis but this is the Analysis of Man that the Body should return to the dust whence it came and the Spirit to God that gave it so that seeing the Spirit had its immediate Origen from God at its Creation doubtless at its Dissolution it doth immediatly retuen to him 4 Were the Soul Generated Extraduce it must either be from the Soul or from the Body of the Parent not from the SOul because nothing can be Generated of a thing Incorporeal Incorpireal Beings do not come under sch alterations not from the Body quia nil dat quod in se non habet Because no Incorporeal Thing can be produce out of a Thing Corporeal Not from both for then the Soul of the Partus would certainly participate of the Nature of them both and so become a Substance partly Corporeal and partly Incorporeal 5 The only Way and Method of its being done were it possible it could be done is enough to Induce us to believe the contrary for then the Soul would be a Substance Compounded of Two pieces of a Spirit the one abstracted from the Spirit of the Male the other from the Soul of the Famale Parent and these Two Pieccs or Paris Blended together into one to Compose a Rational Soul which supposal how Irrational Fictitious and Ridiculous it is any Rational Creature may presently apprehend The true Origen of a Soul viz. That it is immediately Created by God It reamins then that we lay down the true Origen of the Soul which is that it was immediately created by God and infased into the Body This Opinion though it be ancient yet several considerable reasons do incline me to believe it as Orthodox and Genuine and the verity of it may easily be manifested not only by the Confutation of the Two former Opinions but from the Testimony of Sacred Writ viz. he formed the Spirit of Man within him CHAP. IV. Of the Vnion of the Soul to the Body THe Soul being a Substance of an Active and Vigorous Nature God who is its Prime Parent being the Father of Spirits deemed it requisite to bestow upon it a Body dilicately Fabricated not only that this might be its Domicil wherein it should lye Incarcerate That Spirits stand in need of Bodies to Act in as the Platonists would have us believe but he really intended that a part of a Spirits felicity should consist in its Union to some body or other which it might make Use of as a compleatly Organized Machin whereby the better to performe its Actions therefore to Angelic Spirits he gave AEthereal Lucid and Star-like Bodies to the Souls of Men while they continue in these Lower Regions Terrestial Bodies yet curiously Fabricated and fit for their Motions and Operations but when they are devested of these by the assaults of Death then he orders them to enter into Aerial Vehicles that so the easier they may Soar into the invisible Regions of the Coelestial Habitacle and to retain these till the Resurrection when they shall re-assume their former Bodies Transformed and Modified into the Nature of Angelic ones But I shall refer a further Procedure upon this till I come to the Immortality of the Soul and shall here treat a little of the manner of its Union to these our Bodies This is a thing so sublime that it transcends the reach of humane intellect to conceive so capacious that it exceeds the limits of Reason to comprehend so abstruse and difficult that it puzzels the Wits of all Philosophers to demonstrate how Two Substances the one Spiritual the other Corporeal things of a quite contrary Nature should constitute but one Compositum what Medium these can be found for their Union by what means the more principal part doth Vivifiâ— and Actuate the part more inferiour what moving Virtue it doth Exert and Communicate to the Body and by what kind of contact this is done Surely these are things that none but he that is the Sole Author of these Phoenomena can demonstrate how or in what manner they are performed yet that they are performed is very apparent and such is the curiosity of that busie and Pragmatic Creature Man that he cannot contain himself from Prying into the Causes of those things the effects whereof declare them so to be tho they are never so abstruse He thinks there is nothing so locked up in the Cabinet of Nature but by his diligence he may find the Key or that there are no Rareties Treasured up in the Magazine of this Created World that he by a diligent Scrutiny cannot find out Some therefore will tell us That in Man there are Three Essential parts a Body a Soul and a Spirit the Body say they is a Substance made of the Grosser Matter viz. Flesh Blood Bones Nerves Cartilages Veins Arteries c. The Soul is a Substance tho Material yet of an AEtherial and Subtilized Nature Fiery and Flammeous Participating both of the Nature of a Body and of a Spirit and the Spirit which is their Third ingredient in their noble Composition is altogether Incorporeal United to the Body by the mediation of the Corporeal Soul Others will affirm that the Soul being the Ruling part The Cartesians sits like a Queen in the Palace of the Brain upon her Throne the Conarion which is a little Glansâ—lous Body almost in the midst thereof there she Contemplates of the Regions of her Kingdom and the Members of that Common-wealth being always attended with her Viceroy the Animal Spirit whereby she doth at Pleasure send an Embassy into the most Remote Parts of this little World thro the nerves But how well the Authors or Abetters of these Two Opinions have hit the Mark. I leave to the Credulous Reader to determine concerning the First I shall only Query a few things That the Soul is not United by the Mediatioc of the Corporeal Soul evinced by several Queries 1 Whether it be sense to say a Meterial Soul 2 Suppose it be whether there be any such thing as they imagine by it in the Body of Man 3 Whether Body and Spirit be not things of
a quite different Nature 4 Whether Rarefaction or Subtilization make a Body to be less a Body or more a Spirit than it was before 5 Whether a Red-hot Iron have any nearer Approximation to Life than it had before or the Flame of a Candle than the Extinguisht Snuff or Tallow of it 6 Whether this Corporeal Spirit be Semicorporeal and Semi-spiritual As for the Second Opinion let me Query Neither is it only United to the Glandula pinealis and thence Influences the Body First why the Soul should sit upon the Glandula pinealis more than upon any other part of the Body and whence it appears that it doth 2 Whether or no it be extended thro every part of the Conarion or is only one point of it If extended thro every part then why not as well thro the whole Body If in a point how it Acts and Insluenceth the Body 3 Whether this Virtue which the Soul doth Exert and Communicate in its Operations be the Essence of the Soul or no Now these Two Opinions seeming to disagree with the Canons of Reason and True Philosophy it will not I hope be unkindly resented if I exhibit another to the deliberate perusal of the unprejudiced which altho at the first it may seem a little Uncouth yet I am perswaded after some Consideration it will appear to be attended with lesser Inducements to make any Wise Man Incredulous of its verity than either of the former But by its Extension thro the the Body it Actuates all its parts and that is this that the Soul is United to the Body by its Extension thro every one of its parts that the Soul is Extended is not my busienss here to Demonstrate having designed a particular Chapter for it to which I shall refer the Reader and where I shall endeavour to remove the difficulties wherewith this Truth may seem to be burthened If this then be proved how easily may we Imagine an Union of the Soul with the Body to result from its Extension and Diffusion thro the parts thereof CHAP. V. Of the Immateriality of the Soul THe Immateriality of the Soul is a Truth so Undubitably certain and so generally believed that those who have arrived to that height of Audacity as to deny it are justly looked upon to be no better than Atheists for whoever is become so grosly erroneous as to believe his own Soul to be material is consequently reduced may I say Blasphemously to Averr the Nullity of A Deity O Incredulity not to be parallelled O Atheisme absurd and abominable the Immateriality of the Soul may be evinced First from its Activity In-activity is a property pertinent to Matter for Matter can exert no action of it self no not so much as Local Motion unless it be agitated by some External Cause there being no such thing as Natural Motion Matter being a Thing Naturally Inert and Passive but a Spirit which is of a Nature far transcending Matter is always Active and therefore Plato called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-moving it is an imprevaricable Law with all Bodies that nothing whatsoever can move unless it be moved by another and hence it followeth that the Soul that moveth without being excited by any thing else Acting and Operating from its own Intrinsic Power and Faculty is of a higher Race than they From its large Capacity and Discursive Faculty and consequently Incorporeal 2 The large Capacity and Discoursive Faculty of the Soul Demonstrates its Spirituality when we consider the multitude of things that are at once contained in the Soul as likewise its Power of Exerting those Notions and Apprehensions which it had Imbibed in Discourse how can we Conceive any otherwise than that she is Spiritual in her Essence 3 Its Simplicity Uniformity Immortality Self-reflection and Perfection are Infallible Manifesto's of its Incorporeity we may also add Cogitation a Property only Essential to a Spiritual Being From Cogitation for as we said before Matter cannot move it self how much less then is it able to perform that excellent Operation of deeming and thinking I am not Insensible how some do endeavour to evade this Argument for a Late Author doth pretend to Solve the manner of Cogitation Mr. Hobbs his Evasion without recourse to an Incorporeal Principle for faith he the very Motion of Reaction of one part of Matter on another or at least the Continuation of this Reaction can easily effect this for we find by experience when we are Occupied in serious Meditations or diligently incumbent upon our Studies a great Commotion in our Heads and a kind of Confusion in the Parts of the Brain which would not happen except Perception and Cogitation did depend on Matter and were made by the Motion and Agitation of the Particles of the Brain There might be some probability in this It s Solution if the Author could drive us to believe that there was nothing else but Matter in the whole Universe but seeing this is altogether impossible we shall condemn the other as false and ridiculous for if this were true why may not also the Bodies of Men when defunct be endued with the same Power of Cogitation For they are then no less capable of Reaction or Susceptive of Corporeal Impressions besides if we divide Matter into Monads or Minute Physic Particles I Query whether these Monads being seperated one from another may be capable of Perception and Cogitation or only the Compositum resulting there-from Now I think there is no one so a Friend to Atoms that he should think them to have Intelligence for who can believe that the smallest Particle of Matter is indued with Sense and Perception But if it be the whole Compositum what can be the Reason that out of Insensible Things should Emerge Things capable of Sense and Apprehension How is it possible that from the various Coition of Atoms which are Senseless and Incogitant should be produced a Cogitant Animal Having thus proved the Immateriality of the Soul A Digression concerning the Soul of Brutes I must crave leave here to make a little Digression concerning the Souls of Brutes whether their Souls be Immaterial or no Concerning which I shall Nominate Three Opinions all which have been very plausibly received by many First The Opinion of the Lord Bacon Dr. Willis and Gassendus who who do thus Philosophize viz. That Brutes have a Corporeal Soul which being of an Ignite and Fiery Nature doth move the Organized Bodies of these Animals For this See Willis de Anima Brutorum Du. Hamel de Corpore Animato Bacon's Natural History and Learned Mr. Gales Philosophia Generalis Secondly The Hypothesis of Renowned Des Cartes viz. That Brutes are nothing else but Machins curiously Fabricated by the chief Opifex of Nature being Acted and Moved by no other than a Mechanic Motion having neither Sense nor Perception in them and this Opinion saith Monsieur Fernelius seems to be taken from the Philosophy of Moses
Immortality being continually preserved by the Almighty Concourse of Him that created them Not that I think the Souls of Brutes to be capable of that Felicity or Misery the Souls of Men are but we may either suppose them to proceed from the Anima Mundi or Soul of the World which may also be supposed to be Immaterial and so return to it at the Dissolution or rather that when they are divested of their Bodies they take to themselves Aereal ones Some there are that will not admit but explode Aereal Vehicles who suppose That the Souls of them surviving Death doth so continue in a State of Inactivity Insensibility Sleep Silence and Stupor until by a Transmigration they re-assume new Bodies to act in for while Spirits are divested of Bodies they cannot exert any Action But this Supposition would destroy our own Assertion alrady laid down concerning the Active and Cogitant Nature of the Soul But least I should exceed my bounds in too long a Digression I shall now come to the next general Head proposed in Order to treat on and that is The Immortality of the Soul CHAP. VI. Of the Immortality of the Soul The Immortality of the Soul Proved FRom what hath been already alledged concerning the Nature Origin Union and Immateriality of the Soul may with great facility and by necessary consequence be gathered its Immortality also and the fore-precedent things may serve for Topics whence we may raise so many Arguments clearly to evince the same From its Nature The Nature of the Soul is so evident a Demonstraitve of its Immortality that whoever understands the one cannot but easily apprehend the other Is not Spirituality a plain Manifesto of a Durable Existence and Activity and Cogitancy and inseparable Concomitant of Immortality How undeniably doth Plato the Mirror of the Mirror of the World for Learning demonstrates from the Souls being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-moving that it is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ever-moving Is it probable that those inestimable Creatures whose very Essence declares them to be made for a high or end were created for nothing but to actuate these Bodies for a momentary space and then to return to nothing Shall those Pious and Divine Souls who for hopes of the Fruition of the endless Pleasures of another Life have wich great alacrity and content of mind undergone the difficulties of this Mortal Pilgrimage find nothing at the end of their Journey for their reward but a final annihilation And shall the malevolent Slaves of the Devil who have lavished their Patrimony and spent their days in serving the God of this World and in doing Obeisance to their Lusts and Debauched Appetites be discharged from the Penalty of their horrid Crimes by a Cessation of their Essence What can prove a greater Derogation from the Equity of a just Creator than so gross and Supposition Will He From its Origin who hath formed a Creature so like himself so soon destroy it What can be a greater Reflexion on his Wisdom Shall that puff of Divine Breath which had its Rise from Gods Immediate Inspiration subside vanish and become a Non entity Certainly That hand that could immediately produce a Being out of nothing can by an Immediate Concourse preserve it from relapsing into nothing again neither are there any Motives to perswade him that can do this to will the contrary Were the Soul generated from the Parent it might then be corruptible but it hath its Origin from a higher Principle it must needs the◠be of a Nature more lasting permanent and durable From its Union It s Union also is another Test o◠its Immortal Existence if it were united to the Animal Spriit by in near Approximation to the Nature of it or if fixt and fastened to the Pineale Glandule this might be a plausible Pretext to make us entertain some thoughts of its Mortality and Perishing with the Body whereby it is so much influenced but seeing its Union is caused by its permeating the Body and extending and diffusing it self thro every part thereof and so by a vigorous Energy actuating the same certainly all such Imaginations conceiving it Mortal are now banisht and exploded Our Fourth Topic is not likewise empty of proof to demonstrate this Truth From its Immateriality Were the Soul a Substance compounded of the Four Elements or Five Chymic Principles Blended together we should have little reason to plead for its Immortality because all Corporeal Things are subject to Corruption and have that within the verge of their own Essence that in time will cause a Dissolution in them Nam contraria contraiis destruuntur For Contrary Things are destroyed by their Contraries and all Mixed Bodies have within themselves Qualities may I call them so repugnant one to another but the Soul as hath already been proved being of an Immaterial Nature is not obnoxious to any such Cause of Mutability And Nature it self teacheth us That whatsoever hath a Being will be possessed of it until it meet with something to destroy it But now what contrary Principles opposite Elements or repugnant Qualities can Psycotomists or Anatomists of Souls I mean those that hold them Material and so Mortal find in the Analysis of Spirits There are masty more Arguments of undubitable Verity and undeniable Evidence to evince the Souls Immortality as its Infinite Desire of More Mediums to prove the same and its Solicitude about an Immortal State in Dissatisfaction under all the Felicities of this Life and vehement Appetite and Desire after Eternal Beatitude the Fear of Death the Remorses and Stings of Conscience which all Men fall under upon the Sense of Guilt But the Largeness of the Subject and the intended Brevity to which I have limited myself will admit only of a Transitory Glance upon every Thing that occurs to our Speculation Of the Stale of the Soul after Death that it doth not sleep Having therefore proceeded thus far I shall add a little concerning the Manner of the State the Soul remains in immediately after its Dissolution from the Body and that it That I do not believe as some do That it remains in a State of Sleep and Stupor till the Resurrection but that it takes up an Aereal Vehicle and hereby its Motion is made Feasible which if the Soul were devoid of a Body it would be impossible to perform If the Soul immediately after its Separation from the Body pass not only into a State but a Place either of Eternal Misery or Everlasting Happiness it is contrary to the Laws of Nature it should be carried thither without a Body That Souls assume Vehicles after Death for Loco motion is a Property of Bodies and no way to be performed by Spirits separate from Bodies Besides to argue for Vehicles it is a Priviledge proper only to the Deity to live and act alone without Vital Union with a Body It is Natural to a Soul to inliven a
Matter for if there be a Vacuum then undoubtedly there may be Extension without a Body and then Extension is no less congruous to Incorporeal than to Corporeal Beings These Corporealists are quite mistaken in the Notion of Space for by it we do not mean Superficies corporis ambientis The true Nature of Space as Aristotle feigned and whom Cartes seems to abett in his Princip Phil. Part. 2. Sect. 15. Nor as Cartes really expresseth Sect 11. a thing not really different from a Corporeal Substance but a real Entity distinct from all other Beings for Enâ— being the most General Genus is not so narrow as to admit of a Division but into two parts viz. Substance and Accident but the genuine Division of Enâ— is into Substance Mode Space and Time which two last are more general than the other and can no way be comprehended under either of them Having thus manifested the fallacy and invalidity of the fore-mentioned Objection I shall now proceed to the other which is That if the Soul be extended it is then divisible for say they if it be extended it is constituted of parts and whatsoever is so may be divided Now to suppose the Soul to be divisible is very Absurd and Irrational To this I also answer That by Extension I do not mean a rendering a Thing liable to actual division but a real amplitude of Essence Extension is not the Ratio formalis of Bodies Wherein the Nature of Extension doth consist but only as Dr. Glisson in his Book De Natura Substantiae Energetica saith An Accidental Property which belongs to all Substances both Material and Immaterial Besides I grant that Spirits are divisible Intelectually but Physically Indiscerpible for what is Intellectually divisible may be Physically Indiscerpible as it s manifest in the Nature of God whose very Idea implies indiscerpibility the contrary being so plain a Contradiction A Difâ—nction between Divisible and Discerpible and that the Soul is Mentally Divisible tho Actually Indiscerpible By Intellectual Divisibility I mean nothing but that Spirits being extended thro a divisibile Space with the Division of the Space there may be a Mental Division of the Spirits in it but Discerpibility is when a Thing may actually be seperated one part from another this is no way congruous to a Spirit So that a Spirit may be divisible altho Indiscerpible which may serve for a sufficient Solution to this Objection The Difficultes that attend the other Hypothesis are unanswerable That the Soul is not Totum in toto totum in qualibet parte Corporis as the Peripatetics assert If the Soul be not extended we must either suppose it to be Totum in Toto Totum in qualibet parte corporis The whole Soul in the whole Body and the whole Soul in every part of the Body as the Peripatetics imagine it to be Or else That it exists but in one particular Point and then virtually actuates the whole Body Which Supposals how contrary to Reason they are need not much Demonstration As for the First there is no contradiction I ever yet heard of can parallel it for it is as much as to say That One and a Thousand are one and the same number For we will suppose the Body to be constituted of a thousand parts which it may very easily be divided into and that if a whole Soul can be essentially in every one of these parts we must needs then suppose there to be a thousand whole Substances and how these thousand whole Substances should be but one whole Substance is not only inexplicable but irrational and inimaginable If the whole Soul that is every thing of the Soul be in the little finger who can possibly imagine any thing of it much less its total Substance to be in any other part of the Body unless they will also affirm That Spirits have a peculiar power of being present in many places at one and the same instant and so rob God of the Attribute of his Omnipresence making Spirits to participate of the same The next Supposition Tho an immediate consequence of the Non-Extension of Spirits for if they are not extended thro a Space Divisible they must needs be limited to an Indivisible Point is not much less absurd Neither is the Soul in an Indivisible Point for how then can it be united to the Body and as I said already how can it exert any action upon the Body They will say Perhaps it operates upon the Body virtually by causing a virtual Impulse upon the Organs of it but this virtue must be either something of the Essence of the Soul or something distinct from it If it be the Essence of the Soul communicated to the Body then its Extension is granted It s Extension hence undeniably demonstrated but if it be something distinct I answer Nill dat quod in se non habet Some of the Assertors of the Souls Existence in a Point are possessed with such merry Conceits of Spirits as to imagin that a thousand Souls can dance upon the point of a Needle at one and the same time See Dr. Move's Divine Dialogues p. 1. and have room enough to tread their Paces CHAP. VIII Of the Faculties of the Soul BY the Faculties of the Soul What the Faculties of the Soul are we are not to understand things really distinct from the Humane Soul nor each from other as the Aristoteleans would have the Understanding and Will to be but only different Modes and Ways of the Souls Operation specified by their Formal Objects and Acts. Thus as it forms Idea's and Notions of Things it may be termed the Understanding but as it is allured by the goodness of the Object and thence moves towards it it may be termed the Will How the Understanding and Will differ Gale's Philos Generalis The Understanding is conversant about its Object as true the Will about its Object as good As the Soul doth contemplate deliberate judge discourse and conclude it may be termed the Understanding but as it chooseth prosecutes or avoids an Object so it may be termed the Will Now the several distinct Modes of the Souls acting are commonly reduced to five Heads which make the same number of Faculties The Number of the Faculties and they are the Understanding the Will the Conscience the Affections and the Memory The Understanding is called by the Sacred Philosopher Prov. 20.27 The Candle of the Lord. This is it that governs the inferior Faculties The Understanding especially the Imagination and the Phantasie the Formal proper Object of the Intellect is Truth It s Formal Object Truth which as one very well asserts is congeneal and nearly allied to the Mind It hath Nine Intellectile Habits Opinion Experience Imitation Faith Sapience Intelligence Science Prudence and Art to which some adde Cognition which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Representamen of a Thing in the
Intellect The Will by Plato is defined The Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Desire with right Reason or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Rational Appetite The Action of the Will is two-fold the one consists in effectu the other cum affectu from which Distinction that Common Distribution of Voluntary Humane Actions into Elicit and Imperate had its Origin the Object of the Will is Good The Object of the Will good and that which terminates and boundâ— its Appetite finally is the chiefeâ— Good and last End The Conscience no distinct Faculty The Conscience is a Reflexion of the Understanding upon Man's Actions together with a Sentencing them to be either Good or Evil according to those unquestionable Pinciples already received Dr. Ames or it is the judgment of man concerning himself as it is subjected to the Judgment of God So that properly the Conscience is no distinct Faculty from the Understanding this is that Prov. 22.27 Search that which is made by that Candle of the Lord in the lower parts of the Belly It is called a Judgment that thereby it may be distinguished from a naked Apprehension of the Truth for it always contains in it a firm consent and we do not take Judgment here for an Habitual only but also for an Actual Judgment The Affections not distinct from the Will The Affections also do not properly make a distinct Faculty from the Will the Voluntas in affectu or the ellicit root thereof God being the Object of the Will having many Kinds and Degrees according to the different manner of the Souls consideration of it it excites different Affections in the Will and first of all when any thing good or convenient or at least so apprehended by us to be is represented to us it presently excites in us the Passion or Affection of Love to it Cartes that we prosecute it with a desire that it may either be united to us or remain with us but on the contrary when any evil or noxious thing is exposed to us it immediately stimulates us to Hatred the opposite Affection to Love as it is an Affection of Union with present Good is often joyned Joy and to Hatred Sadness and when there is a full and perfect possession of this desired Good then there is pure Love and solid and sincere Rejoycing but when there is not a perfect Fruition of the thing beloved then Desire is joyned with Love and Sadness is mixed with Rejoycing Likewise with a desire of Absent good there is mixed Hope and Fear according to the probability of a good or evil Event Issue Effect or Consequence of the matter which Hope if it be very great is called Faith and Confidence but when small or no hope is mixed with abundance of fear it degenerates into those spurious Affections of Unbelief and Despair These Affections especially Love and Desire do vary and differ much according to the Opinion we have of the value of the Object for when the intrinsic or inward perfection and pulchritude of the Object is only look'd upon then there is a Love of Complacency and the Object is properly said to please to this is opposed an Aversion from an Object by the consideration of the contrary Imperfection and Deformity but when we consider of this Perfection as convenient for our selves and see it agreeable with our Nature How Love is caused its several kinds this Love of Complacency is turned into a Love of Concupiscence which is another Affection of the Soul and properly another kind of Love Again When the Lover hath a less esteem of the Object than of Himself there thence ariseth a simple Propension which is called Benevolence Thus we love a Flower or Bird c. When we love an Object equally with our selves thence springs Friendship and Charity and such is the Love of Parents to Children and Conjugal Relations one to another but when there is a higher Valuation of the Object than of our Selves as we all ought to have of God our Prince City Countrey Parents and Friends that are â—eminent in Vertue and Merits this kind of Love is called Devotion Among all the Affections and Passions of the Soul Love bears sway Love the chief Affection of the Soul for the several Affections of the Will are but various Forms and Shapes of Love which gives swift Wings and strong Legs to the Soul to pursue what it loves There is no Affection of the Soul but Love hath it at command the Will governs all inferiour Faculties of the Soul but she is governed by Love Plato makes Love to be the great Hero that governs the World so universal is its Empire and Dominions If the Object beloved be absent then Love fixes the Will with ardent desires after it if the Absence be attended with Difficulties or Affronts than Love goes forth by Anger and Fear to conflict therewith and Hope with Courage for the attaining the Object beloved If the Good be present then Love embraceth it with Complacence and Delight if lost then it bewails its loss with Sorrow and according to the Nature and Measure of the Love such will be the Nature and Measure of the other Affections that issue from it But we will say no more of the Affections The Memory The Memory is that Faculty of the Soul whereby it treasures up those things it hath received this is the Magazine of Notions it is the Souls grand Repository wherein it reconds its Riches and draws them forth according to Pleasure CHAP. IX Of the Parts of the Body HAving thus far considered Man in his more Sublime Superior and Coelestial Part we now descend to that Part which is Inferior and more Terrestrial viz. The Body And indeed it is not a Work much less difficult accurately to delineatâ— the Parts of the Body than to explicate the Nature of the Soul thâ— the manner of acquiring Knowledge in both these Parts is much different For the one is done by Profound Contemplation the other by Ocular Inspection the one by a Mental Notional Penetrateing into the Bowels of a Spirit the other by aâ— Actual and Manual Dissection of Bodies As for the Doctrine of the first which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pneumatology we have already handled it We come now to the Somatologio Part which is strictly called Anatomy Anatomy its Subject Anatomy then is a Science which hath the Body of any Animal for its Subject whether Terrestrial Volatile or Aquatile yet among the number of Animals the Body of Man is to be preferred both because of the Pefection of its Parts and because endless would be the Dissection of other Animals they being almost innumerable and likewise because of the incredible Conducement of Anatomizing Humane Bodies both for preserving and restoring the Health of Man But seeing the Bodies of Men defunct are not always at hand it hath been a Custom of Ancient standing even among the Learned to
and next to it most active from this Principle ariseth the variety of Colours and Smells the pulchritude and deformity of Bodies and the diversity of Tastes in a great measure that this Principle is copious in the Blood is evident from this that we are for the most part fed with Fat and Sulphurious Things From the solution of this it is very probable that the Crimson Tincture of the Blood ariseth for sulphureous Bodies do above all others tinge their dissolving Menstruums with a red Colour and when by reason of Crudity the Sulphur is not dissolved the Blood becomes pale and watery and will scarce make red a Linnen Cloth that is dipt in it The Mass of Blood thus impregnated with a considerable quantity of Sulphur together with abundance of Spirits becomes very fermentescible Salt which is a principle of a Nature more fixt than either Spirit or Sulphur neither so disposed for Volatility is that which makes Bodies compact and solid also ponderous and durable it promotes the coagulation of Bodies and Retards their Dissolutions resists Corruptions and Inflamability and because Spirit and Sulphur are too Volatile it fixeth them by its embracing them that this Principle is in the Blood is manifest by its Gusto when the saline Particles in the Blood are not enough exalted by reason of a bad Digestion but remain crude and for the most part fixt the Blood hence becomes thick and unable to perform its due circulation so that from hence arise Obstructions in the Bowels and solid parts and hence Serous Crudities are abundandantly generated but if by reason of the Deficience and Depression of the Spirit the Salt be too much exalted and reduced to a fluor a sharp austere Diathesis doth then accost the Blood such as is observed in Scorbutic Persons and in those that are attended with Quartian Agues Phlegm or Water which is the Vehicle of Sulphur and Spirit and the Medium to unite them together with the Salt for the other Principles being dissolved or at least diluted in this are kept in motion but without it they become stiff and congealed it is upon this Principle that the Fluidity of the blood depends hereby also its Conflagration and Adustion is restrained and its Heat tempered Earth is that which gives Consistency and Magnitude to Bodies by this the too great Volatilization of the Blood and its Accension is hindered Now tho these Principles are those whereof the Mass of Blood be composed yet this doth not at all destroy our former Assertion of the four Humours for while the Blood is circulating in its containing Vessels some of its Parts do continually wax old and new ones do supply their Deficience hence either by Crudity or too much Concoction something of necessity must become useless and Excrementicious which by the Fermentation and Effervescence of the Blood as in the Effervescence and Depuration of Wine it is secerned and seperated from its Mass Thus that watery Humour that is percolated in the Cavities of the Stomach and Intestines is called Phlegm those Particles of Salt and Sulphur and and some other adust ones secerned in the Liver and received by the Vasa Choledocha is that which they call Bile or Choler and the Earthy Feculencies sometimes in the Spleen is that we call Melancholy But these things I shall more fully handle in the subsequent Chapter where I shall Discover something of the Depuration of the Blood CHAP. XI Of the Functions of the Body NOt to tread in the footsteps of the Ancients farther than their Sentiments are agreeable to the Canons of Reason and Experience I shall not here confine my self to proceed in their Method it being inclusive of some particulars altogether ridiculous and exploded by all the ingenious for whoever will so devote himself to all their Tenents must of necessity restrain his mind from believing not only Maxims of undeniable Verity but also demonstrations of infallible Experience Thus those that conform their Opinion to theirs about the Subdivision of the Nutritive Faculty into the Attractive Retentive Concoctive and Expulsive must necessarily thwart their own Experience at least nullifie the constant Rules of Nature in imagining new and fictitious ones viz. By the attractive Faculty they would have us conceive that in the parts of this Body there is resident some charming Vertue whereby the Proxime Aliment is allured to them or that they by a kind of Magnetic Influence do effectually draw unto them the adjacent Nourishment By the Retentive they would have us believe that the parts of the Body finding this Aliment so agreeable and consimular to their Nature are so inamour'd with them as to retain them by voluntary Embraces The Genuine Distribution of the Functions The Genuine therefore and Legitime Distribution of the Functions are into these seven viz. The Nutritive the Vital the Sensitive the Locomotive the Enunciative and the Generative The Nutritive Function First the Nutritive Function forasmuch as Animals can perform those Actions which their Nature is capable of while they continue in that state in which they were first formed the God of Nature hath ordered that a Nutrition should succeed which might dilate and amplifie their slender Fibres by interweaving and assimulating so many more congeners to them as might reduce their Bodies to a convenient magnitude besides which is a great end aspired after by Nature in this necessary Function this greatly conduceth and almost solely serves for the Conservation of the Animals for since the primary Principle of Life in every Animal is a certain vital Flame and indegenary Heat such as is the rectified Spirit of Wine upon Ascention which penetrates and briskly agitates the fluid parts continually feeding upon them as its proper Pabulum or Fuel which Sulphureous and Oily Particles afford Aliment to that lamp of Life this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or innate Heat at first kindled by the Vegetative Soul or rather the Plastic Spirit in the Blood constantly burning in the Heart as in its Fountain or Primary Focus and thence by Diffusion of it self thro the Arteries warming enlivening and cherishing the Parts would soon consume and dissipate all its soluble Particles had it not a constant supply and continual Reparation or Renovation of those decays it causes to exhale and evaporate by a substitution and assimulation of equivalent Particles in the room of those dispersed and absum'd and so at last a Marasmus or Consumption would immediately ensue and the fluid parts being quite exhausted or dispersed and the vital Flame being quite destitute and devoid of Sustenance Life would totally be extinguisht but to anticipate such sad Effects and that this Principle of Life might not become our intern mortal Enemy so soon to destroy us our Mother Nature hath constituted this noble Function How Nutrition is performed which how it is performed is now incumbent upon me a little to explicate and that this may be done in a regular procedure we must subdivide
the following Discourse to thy Candid Perusal hoping it may be of some Benefit and Advantage to thee Vale G. W. On the AVTHOR BEgon faint Limners with your vain pretence Of Plainly Representing Man to Sense Your Art 's defective you cannot Pourtray This Lively Image vain is your Essay By Lines and Lineaments his Shape t' Express That makes not Man which is his Garb and Dress The Soul 's the Man your Colours are too Dark To give the Features of that Heavenly Spark Learn then of th' Author for he it is that knows To Draw the Man as well as Paint his Cloaths W. B. THE CONTENTS The Introduction Pag. 1 THE Creation of the World Ib. Of Light Pag. 2 Of the Firmament Pag. 5 Of Water Pag. 6 The Cause of the Saltness of the Sea Ibid. How it is made Fresh Ibid. Of the Motion of the Sea Ibid. Of the Generation of Plants Pag. 7 Of the Heavens and Coelestial Luminaries Pag. 8 Of the Suns Motion with the Motion of the Earth Pag. 9 Of Living Creatures Ib. Of the Creation of Man Ib. Mans Analogy with the Great World Pag. 10. CHAP. I. THe two Parts of Man and the Division of this Discourse into its Two Parts Pneumatology and Somatology Pag. 12 CAHP. II. Of the Nature and Definition of the Soul Pag. 14. AN Introduction to this Chapter Ibid. That the Soul is not the Form of Man Pag. 15 But that Vnion is the Form of Man Ibid. Reasons to prove the Soul not to be a Form Pag. 16 17 18 Aristotle's Definition of the Soul ridiculous and pedantic Pag. 19 20 The true Definition of the Soul Its Essence consists in Cogitancy Pag. 21 Cogitancy hath no dependance upon the Body Pag. 23 CHAP. III. Of the Origin of the Soul Ibid. THat the Soul doth not prae-exist Pag. 24 Neither is it propagated ex tracude Pag. 25 Several Arguments against the Souls propagation Ibid. The true Origin of the Soul That it is immediately Created by God Pag. 27 CHAP. IV. Of the Union of the Soul to the Body Pag. 28 THat Spirits stand in need of Bodies to Act in Ibid. c. That the Soul is not united by the Mediation of the Corporeal Soul evinced by several Quaeries Pag. 32 Neither is it only united to the Glandula Pinealis and thence influenced by the Body Ib. But by its extention thro the Body it actuates all its parts Pag. 33 CHPP. V. Of the Immateriality of the Soul Pag. 34 THe Souls Immateriality proved from its Activity Pag. 35 From its Largeness and Discursive Faculty Ib. From Cogitation Pag. 36 Mr. Hobbs his Objection and Evasion Ib. It s Solution Pag. 37 A Digression concerning the Souls of Brutes Pag. 38 39 That Brutes have not Material Souls Pag. 40 Neither are they insensible Mâ—â—â—â—ns Pag. 42 But that Brutes also have Immaterial Souls Pag. 44 An Objection Pag. 45 The Answer Pag. 46 47 CHAP. VI. Of the Immortality of the Soul Pag. 48 THe Immortality of the Soul proved Ibid. From its Nature Ibid. From its Origin Pag. 50 From its Vnion Ibid. From its Immateriality Pag. 51 More Mediums to evince the same Pag. 52 The State of the Soul after Death Pag. 53 That it doth not Sleep Ibid. That Souls assume Vehicles after their Dissolulution from their Bodies Ib. Three Arguments to prove the same Pag. 54 The same evinced by the Testimony of the Ancient Fathers Ibid. The same implicitely evidenced from Scripture and from Moses and Elias appearing upon the Mount and from all other Apparitions Pag. 55 56 Of the Resurrection and new Modification of the Body Pag. 57 CHAP. VII Of the Extension of the Soul Pag. 58 AN Objection aganst the Souls Extension Pag. 59 The same answered Ibid. Arguments to prove a Vacuum Pag. Ibid. A Vacuum demonstrated by experience Pag. 60 The true Nature of Space Pag. 61 Another Objection against the Souls Extension Pag. 62 An Answer to it Ibid. Wherein the Nature of Extension doth consist Pag. 63 A Distinction between Divisible and Discerpible and that the Soul is mentally Divisible the actually indiscerpible Ibid. That the Soul is not Totum in toto totum in qualibet partae Corporis as the Peripatetics assert Pag. 64 Neither is the Soul in an Indivisible point Pag. 65 It s Extension hence undeniably demonstrated Pag. 66 CHAP. VIII Of the Faculties of the Soul Ibid. WHat the Faculties of the Soul are Ibid. How the Vnderstanding and Will differ Pag. 67 The Number of the Faculties Ibid. The Vnderstanding its Formal Object Truth Pag. 68 The Nine Intellectual Habits Ibid. The Will its Object Good Ibid. The Conscience no distinct Faculty Ibid. The Affections not distinct from the Will Pag. 69 How Love is caused Pag. 71 Love the Chief Affection of the Soul Pag. 72 The Memory Pag. 73 CHAP. IX Of the Parts of the Body Pag. 74 ANatomy It s Subject Pag. 75 The Division of the Parts of Mans Body Pag. 76 The Principal Parts Ib. The less Principal Parts Pag. 77 The Simular Parts Ib. The Dissimular Parts Ib. The Division of the Body into its Three Venter and Four Artus Pag. 78 The Lower Venter its Parts Ib. and Pag. 79 The Cuticula Pag. 80 The Cutis Pag. 81 The Pinguedo or Fat Ib. The Muscles of the Belly Pag. 82 The Peritoneum Pag. 83 The Omentum Ib. The Stomach Ib. The Intestines Pag. 84 The Pancreas Ib. The Cause of Agues according to Sylvius Ib. The Liver its Figure and Connection Pag. 85 Its use to secern the Bile Pag. 86 To concoct the Lympha and impregnate it with a Volatile Salt Pag. 87 Its Ducts and Meatus Ib. The Spleen Pag. 88 Its Vse Ib. Helmont's Opinion false Pag. 89 Walaeus the Inventer of its true Function Ib. The Reins Pag. 90 The use of the Capsulae Atrabilariae Ib. The Vreters Pag. 91 The Bladder Pag. 92 An Experiment touching the Coction of a humane Bladder with some Liquors Ib. The Vessels and Organs of Generation why we omit insisting on them Pag. 93 The Middle Venter or the Thorax Pag. 94 The Breasts and their Parts Pag. 95 Some Conjectures how Milk is generated Pag. 97 The Diaphragm Pag. 98 The Cause of Sardonian Laughter Pag. 99 The Ribbs Pag. 100 The Pleura the Seat of the Pleurisie Ib. The Mediastinum Pag. 101 The Pericardium Ib. Whence proceeded that Water that issued out of our Saviour's Side Pag. 102 The Heart Ib. That is not situated on the left side as some imagine Ib. The reason why it beats more on the left side then on the right Ib. How Cordials help the Heart in Syncope's Pag. 103 The use of the Heart Ib. The Pulse Pag. 104 Its Systole and Diastole Ib. and Pag. 105 The Circulation of the Blood Pag. 106 How often the Blood circulates thro the Body in an hour Pag. 107 The Vessels belonging to the Heart Pag. 109 The Lungs Pag. 110 Their use Ib. The Aspera Arteria Pag. 111 The Larynx its Muscles Pag.
debilitated and diminished hence the habit of Bodies is render'd fluxible and Man passes in a short time as it were out of one Crasis and Constitution of Body into another so that the space in which such like mutations as these are made is properly termed an Age â—iverius Or the true Notion of an Age is that space of Life in which by the action of the Native Heat upon the Primogenial Moisture the Constitution of the Body is manifestly changed The Division of the Ages of Man The Ages of Man not to divide them according to the Rules of Lawyers and Astrologers but as is most consistent to the Canons of Physic and most redounds to the use of Physicians are Four Pueritia Childhood Juventus Youth Consistens Aetas Middle-Age Senectus Old-Age Before I particularly handle each of these I will only take notice how Nature takes delight in her Quaternary changes The Constitutions of Men are distinguisht by Four Humours and Temperaments every Disease by its Four Parts the Beginning the Increment the State and the Declension A Year is divided by its four-fold Mutation into so many Quarters and the Ages of Man neither exceed not fall short of this number Pueritia or Child-hood Child-hood is from the Birth or very Exit of the Partus from the confining Cubicle of its Mothers Womb into the ample Pavilion of a capacious World to the 25th year of its Age. This Age is for the most part hot and moist it is again distributed into Four Parts the first is Infancy which is extended to the Fourth or according to others to the Seventh Year The Second Pueritia strictly so called to the Fourteenth The Third Pubertas to the Eighteenth The Fourth Adolescentia to the Twenty fifth The Character of an Infant When the feeble Infant first enters upon the Stage of this World how exactly doth it act the Part of a bewildred stranger and imitate some wandring Pilgrim arrived at some strange and unknown Haven or one that is banish'd out of a comfortable Region where he could indulge himself in what most of all delighted him into some exotic and destitute Countrey or like a Person very well cloathed who in an instant he knows not how is stript Naked and so exposed to the Eyes of them whom he never saw before Thus the Infant after its exclusion from the Womb looks on this side and on that side and in the mid'st of Friends sees no Friend and then by its Countenance seems to express or at least it is legible in its Face what Aristotle when among his Friends vocally pronounced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Friends no Friend and because it cannot express its own Sentiments or manifest its wants in the unknown Language of that strange Land which it is now by force and compulse reduced to inhabit it begins to utter its Complaint in its own proper Tongue and bewails its forlorn Condition with Ehu's and such like deplorable Interjections but at last finding a necessity of its abiding here it endeavours to acquaint it self with the Modes and Fashions of the place wherein it is and to imitate their Customs and Practices it is pleas'd with Toys and Baubles and the Rattles of Infancy then arride it and thus he spends the two former parts of his Age in Folly and Vanity and truly the third little better but when he arrives at the Fourth which is Adolescentia he divests himself not only of the Swadling Cloaths of his Infancy but also of his Childhood Apparel and then puts on his Manly Gown he abjures the Trifles he so long retained and throws away all such silly Buffoonries and betakes himself to those things that have more Solidity in them Youth his Character The next Age to this is Youth which is Hot and somewhat Dryer than the Age before described now the Heat becomes Vigorous and Intense and precipitates the Blood adapted for Motion into a more than ordinary Fermentation it excites the Appetites to pursue the things they desire with a strange kind of Impetuosity and hurries them to satiate those Cravings and Concupiscible Appetites Now the Body is most robust and the vigorous Spirits are almost indefatigable now Passions are on every side ready to accost the Man and sometimes the violent Impulses excited in his Body make a great impression on his united Mind and cause such a strange influence upon his Soul that he finds it very difficult to abstract his Thoughts from those assaulting Representations injected into his extravagant or too inordinate Phantasie and thus the Mind doth too often consent to those Peccaminosities to which Youth is too much addicted And hence it is very requisite and becoming Youth for them to use a Bridle to all those unruly Passions that they fly not out into a career of those whch they think Heroic Pranks that their Juvenile Age is so inclinable unto or so far transcend their Sphere or exceed their Limits as to indulge themselves in such Hellish Debaucheries as always inhanse a future shame I do not conclude but Passions are lawful and where they are regular none can malign them the forbidden Object or the undue measure of the Passions themselves is that which makes them sinful for such is the Contexture of a Humane Body and such is the brisk fluctuating Motion of the Sanguine Liquor that Man is always disposed for one Passion or other For when an Object obviously presented to the Mind is apprehended by it to be of a Nature Evil and Noxious the Soul is thereby presently stimulated to the Passion of Hatred and thence excited to an ireful Revenge but when a pleasing and delectable Object is represented the Soul immediately caresses it Hence ariseth the Passion of Love the Body in the mean time finding a great Congruity between it self and the object beloved complies to embrace it and thus it is also in respect of the other passions of Youth This Age continues to the thirty first Year some will have it last to the Fortieth The Consistent Age. The Third is Aetas Consistens which begins where the other ends and continues to the Forty-fifth or Fiftieth Year it is called the Consistent Age because those that are in this age do seem to stay stop continue or consist in the same state for tho the strength in this Age doth begin something to be diminisht yet this mutation is not evident or perceptible in the habit or actions of the Body This Age is commonly cold and dry and hence more inclinable to Melancholy than any other Old Age. The last is Senectus or Old-age which continues to the very extremity of Life this is subdivided into three parts Prima Senectus from the Fiftieth Year to the Sixtieth Aetas Ingravescens from the Sixtieth Year to the Seventieth and Decrepitude from the Seventieth Year to the end of Life Now Man having past thro the Spring of his Infancy the Summer of his Youth and the
112 The Tonsils Pag. 113 Why Women have clearer Voices than Men Pag. 114 The Neck Ib. The Vpper Venter or the Head its Divisions Pag. 115 The Pericranium and Periostium Pag. 116 The Dura Mater and Pia Mater Ib. The Ventricles of the Brain Ib. The Motion of the Brain consisting of a Systole and Diastole Pag. 117 Thae Glandula Pituitaria Pag. 118 The Infundibulum Ib. The Corpus Callosum Pag. 119 The Plexus Choroides Ib. The Glandula Pinealis its use Pag. 120 Eight Reeasons why it cannot be the Seat of the Soul Ib. and Pag. 121 The Fore-head and Eye-brows Pag. 123 The Eyes Ib. It s Muslces Tunics and Humours Pag. 124 125 The Ears Pag. 126 The Nose Pag. 127 The Cause of Sneezing Pag. 128 The Mouth Ib. The Tongue its Ligament Pag. 129 A pernicious Custom among Mid-wives Ib. The Artus Ib. The Hand and its Parts Ib. The Foot with its Parts Pag. 130 CHAP. X. Of the Humours Complexions and Temperaments Pag. 132 THe great use and benefit of the Knowledge of the Temperaments Pag. 133 134 135 Their number according to Galen Pag. 136 What Heat is and what Cold Pag. 137 What we are to understand by Moisture and Driness Ib. The Temperaments rightly distinguished according to the number of the Four Humours Pag. 138 The Sanguine Corstitution described Pag. 139 140 141 The Choleric Constitution Pag. 142 143 Signs of the Phlegmatic Temperament Pag. 144 How to distinguish when the Melancholy Humour is predominaâ—tâ— Pag. 145 146 147 The Doctrine of the Four Humours reconciled with that of the Five Chymic Principles Pag. 150 151 to Pag. 154. CHAP. XI Of the Functions of the Body Pag. 155 THe genuine Distribution of the Functions Pag. 156 The Nutritive Function Ib. How Nutritition is performed Pag. 158 Chylification or the First Concoction how this is done Pag. 159 160 Sanguification or the Second Concoction Pag. 161 How Chyle is transmuted into Blood Ib. The true Instrument that Nature makes use of in making Blood Pag. 163 The Excrements secerned from the Blood and how Pag. 164 165 c. The true Rise and Origin of Splenetic and Hypochondriac Affects Pag. 167 c. Assimulation Membrification or the Third Concoction Pag. 172 The Vital Function Pag. 173 What Vital Spirits are Pag. 174 The Archaeus of the Pseudo-Chymists a meer Fiction Ib. Pulsation how performed Pag. 175 Respiration its Parts Inspiration and Expiration Pag. 176 The use of Respiration in Eight Particulars Pag. 177 The Sensative Function Pag. 178 The Number of the Senses Ib. What things are requisite in every Sensation Ib. The Loco-motive Function Pag. 179 The Enunciative Function Ib. How a strong and weak Voice is caused Ib. The generative Function Pag. 180 The Nature and Origin of Seed Ib. Conception the Manner of it Pag. 183 Seven manifest Signs of Conception Pag. 184 The Position and Situation of the Infant in the Womb Pag. 186 The Manner of its Birth Pag. 187 In what Month the Birth commonly happens Pag. 188 CHAP. XII Of the Sexes Pag. 189 THe Distinction of Man into two Sexes Pag. 191 The Male Ib. His Natural Diffirence from the Female Ib. When a Male and when a Female is generated Ib. The Female Pag. 194 The Praise and Encomium of that Noble Sex both as to their Beauty and Phantasie Pag. 195 The Excellency of Marriage Pag. 196 Reflections on them that speak against and calummate Women Pag. 199 What befals them who abhorring Marriage contaminate themselves with polluted Women Pag. 199 CHAP. XIII Of the Ages of Man Pag. 201 THe Division of the Ages of Man Pag. 202 Child-hood the Character of an Infant Pag. 203 204 Youth his Character Pag. 206 The Consistent Age Pag. 208 Old Age Pag. 209 The Distempers with which Old Age is attended Pag. 210 211 The Conclusion Pag. 212. The Reader Courteous Correction of these with other small faults that have escaped the Press is humbly desired PAge 2 line ult r. Privative p. 9 l. 18 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 16 l. â— r. Crany and l. 17 and l. 1â— r. Maâ—iner p 17 l. 12 r. Disinguens ab omni alio p. 18 l 14 r. identity p. 20 l. 19 r. convenerit and p. 21 r. Medetur l. 3 r. Mehercule p. 22 l. 10 r. a higher p. 23 l. 2 r for verfited 〈◊〉 manifested p. 29 l. ult r. there p. 47 l. 24 r. do p. 59 l. 3 f. Ascention r. Extention p. 60 r. Sectator p. 69 l. 21 r. Elicit p. 88 l. 10 r. Habet p 104 l. 2 f. â—dly r. 2dly p. 105 l. 12 r. Arteria p. 125 l. 12 r. an Artery dele Comms and l. 21 r. it p. 129 l. ult r. Hand p 130 l. 13 r. 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Volatility A DISCOURSE CONCERNING MAN A Proemial Introduction WHen God the Supreme Being within the boundless circumference of whose Omnipotence is the possibility of effecting all things in the beginning of time The Creation of the World by the Energy of his Puissance produced the Fabric of this World out of nothing and caused this Visible Structure to Emerge out of a confused Chaos He first animated that inert Matter which he had created with the Mundane Spirit which Vivifies the united Members of this Uniforme Globe he caused the Vigorous Active Soul of the World to move upon the Surface of the Waters and to agitate the Glideing Particles of that Fluid Element This Universal Soul by its â—nergetic and Efformative Efficience Permeating and Inhabiting all things was continually fluctuating and never quiescent till it had reduced its inordinate Domicil to so harmonious an Order to so regular and consonant a Situation and to so elegantly Organized a Contexture as we now see it Beautified with This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Plasâ—ic Principle which by its Prolific Virtue preserves the Species of things and multiplies their Individuals determinates the Forms Shapes and Configurations of the same in their Generations After this Of Light he caused the glorious Light to shine forth out of private darkness hereby the substances of Bodies were rendered visible Des Cartes Princip Philosophiae and their Colours Shapes and Figures made conspicuous This is caused saith a Learned Philosopher by the Conatus of the Globules of the second Element gathered together about their Center to recede there from These Lucid Corpuscles at their firâ—t Creation were equally expanded through the Regions of the Air but now they flow and stream forth in a perpetual Current from their Center or Fountain these Rays or Emanations of Light by the Intervention of any Opace Body are reflected by the Interposition of a Semidiaphanous Body are refracted and they are contracted and united into a
with the great World both in his Angellic Heavenly and Sublunary parts The Soul that Queen Regent in the Palace of the Brain is the Anima Munduli and represents the Soul of the World the Spirits represent the Heavens the Subtle and Aetherial parts of the Universe the Four Humours bear a great Analogy with the Four Elements Choler that hot Sulphureous and Raging Humour is like the furious Element of Fire the calmness of the Blood is compared to the Serenity of Air the dulness of Flegm to the Hebetude of Water and the Adust Melancholy is like the Feculent Earth Hairs represent the verdent Vegetables Bones and Stones in the Reins and Bladder represent Rocks Stones and Minerals the Veins and Arteries the Rivers and Caverns of the Earth the Circulation of the Sanguine Liquor is a representative of the Motion of the Marine Waters and of the Waters in the profound Abysses of the Terrestrial Globe Dew is represented by Tears Hail By Concocted Flegm Rain by the Humours that fall into the Throat See Crook's Body of Man Thunder by Fury Heat Rumbling Belching and Winds by exhaled Crudities Hissing Singing and Ringing Noises in the Ears c. Now if the consonant Order harmonious Structure and regular Composure of the greater World be not enough to confute an Atheist here is enough to astonish him if the Contemplation of the Works of Creation in reference to the Macrocosme will not lead him to the acknowledgment of a Deity and first cause here 's that which will make it as Visible and Conspicuous as the Sun in its Meridian glory Having cleared the way by this Brief Introduction I shall without any further Remora come to the intended Scope of this Design Chap. I. Of the Distribution of Man into his Two Essential Constituring Parts ANthropology The Two parts of Man or that Doctrine which Treats concerning Man may rightly be divided into Two parts viz. Pneumatology which gives an account of his Soul and Somatology which is the Anatomy of his Body Man being defined a Substance consiâ—ing of a Spiritual and Rational Soul and of a fitly composed Body in order therefore to the discription of this noble Creature we shall first Treat of his more sublime and ruling part his Soul we shall endeavour to unfold the hidden Treasures and Unlock those choise Curiosities that are cloistered up in the Cabinet of this Pneumatic Science and that this might be done after a Methodic manner I shall first discourse concerning the Nature of the Soul Secondly concerning its Origen Thirdly concerning its Union to the Body Fourthly concerning its Immateriality Fifthly corcerning its Immortality Sixthly concerning its Extension and Lastly concerning its Faculties CHAP. II. Of the Nature and Definition of the Soul An Introduction to this Chapter SEing the Soul is a Being whose Nature is far above the reach of Sense invisible to the most acute Acies of Corporeal Eyes Intrectable by the most sensible Organs of Touching it is most evident that nothing can penetrate into the Bowels of this Golden Mine or explicate the hidden Mysteries therein contained but the Soul it self she who is immaterial her self can best by a reflex-speculation explicate the Nature of a Spirit and truly this Work must be set upon by the Soul not with Rashness or Temerity but with diligent Rumination serious Deliberation profound Contemplation and sedulous Industry For what Pedantic notions of the Soul have been abstracted from the Brains of some tho counted very judicious by reason of their Incogitance others thro Critical Câ—â—iosiry have broached some Notions as ridiculous as the former thro Inadvertency What a silly Fiction is that That the Soul is the Form of Man And how unprofitable are the Distinctions and Disputes of the School-men concerning Forms That the Soul is not the Form of Man in Order to the Abettment of this Hypothesis is evidently manifested by that never enough praised Person the Honourable Robert Boyle For it is most agreeable to the Canons of Reason that Man being an Animal compounded of Two distinct parts a Rotional Active and and Cogitant Soul and a fitly Adapted and Organized Body each of which have their proper and particular Forms hath no other Form quatonus compositum than the Union between the Soul and Body But that Union is the Form of Man Plato was greatly deceived in Imagining the Body to be no part of Man but that Man was nothing but a Soul making use of a Body as its Domicil wherein it is Incarcerated But of all Opinions a more ridiculous could not have been invented than that the Soul is the Form of Man Certainly this crackt the Cranny of him that found it out else he would never have vented such Crack-brained Notions so frequently one after another yet such was his Estime and Credit that many will still altho with as little Reason as the Author himself indeavor to abett this Assertion That the Soul is the Form of Man not the Forma Informans say some of them but Forma Assistens as they call it just as a Marriner in a Ship yet who will be so arrogant to assert that a Marriner is the Forme of a Ship But that I may a little demonstrate this Diametrically opposite Sentiment of mine That the Soul can in no wise be imagined to be the Form of Man Reasons to prove the Soul not to be a Form I shall shew upon what Foundation this Assertion is established and first I say the very Notion and Definition of a Form cannot in the least be appropriated to the Soul and it is agreed upon by all Cui non convenit definitio ei neque definitum beside the Peripatetic and pretended Definition of a Form viz. Forma est per quod res est id quod est is no more a Definition of a Form than Oculus est per quod al quis vidit is a Definition of the Eye But a Form may be thus rightly Defined Forma est ens incompletum materiam informans unum per se cum materiâ constituens distinuens ab omni aâ—os It is an incomplete Being informing Matter and constituting one Essential Being with the Matter and distinguishing it from every thing else Now First the Soul is not an Incomplete Being for an Incomplete Being is some Mode or Accident which cannot subsist unless coexistent wâ—th a complete Substance but the Soul is a complete Being subsisting of it self Secondly the Soul doth not inform Matter if so it would be the Form of the Body for then there would be an Intrinsic Communication of Essence and Essential Properties We will grant there is a Presence a Contact a Diffusion an Union and an Actuation yet none of these come under the Notion or Title of Information and altho the Soul doth Actuate the Body yet it doth not Communicate every Action to the Body but performs many Aâ—tions without any dependance thereupon as Cogitative Intellectual and voluntary Actions
where the Blood is said to be the Life of Brutes Le-Grand also in his Book De Carentia sensus cognitionis in Brutis hath endeavoured to defend Des Cartes and prove that Brutes are nothing but Natural Horologies or Organs of Clock-work being altogether as void of Sense as Clocks performing their Motion the same way The Third is the Hypothesis of Famous Derodon Dr. More and Dr. Cudworth viz. That Brutes are Acted by an Incorporeal Soul not differing in kind from Mans but only in degree That Bruits have not Material Souls From the First of these I must needs acknowledge my Dissent or contradict my self in what I said before yet still retaining that Reverence and Adoration I bear to the Learning of its Authors For I have already declared that there is contrariety between Matter and Spirit so that a Material or Corporeal Spirit is a contradiction and I have already said that Matter of it self is Inactive Senseless and Inert Dr. Cudworth's System of the Universe Neither can the Souls of Brutes saith a late Learned Philosopher be imagined to be Flame and Fire for Flame and Fire is nothing but such a Motion of the Insensible Parts of a Body as whereby they are violently agitated and many times dissipated for begetting those Flames of Light and Heat in the Animals Now there is no difficulty at all in conceiving that Insensible Particles of a Body which were before Quiescent may be put into Montion this being nothing but a new Modification of them and no Entity really distinct from the Substance of the Body as Life Sense and Cogitation are and therefore it is but a crude Conceit of Atheists and Corporealists That Souls are nothing but Fiery and Flammeous Bodies for tho Heat in the Bodies of Animals be a necessary Instrument for the Life and Soul to act by in them yet it is a thing really distinct from Life We might also add That according to this Hypothesis the Souls of Animals could not be Numerically the same thro the whole space of their Lives since that Fire that needs a Pabulum to prey on doth not always continue one and the same Numeric Substance the Soul of a new-born Animal could no more be the same with the Sould of that Animal Seven years after than the Flame of a new-lighted Candle is the same with that which twinkles in the Socket which indeed are no more the same than a River or Stream is the same at several distances of time Which Reason may be farther extended to prove the Soul to be no Body at all since the Bodies of Animals are in a perpetual Flux Neither are they Insensible Machins Concerning the Second Hypothesis which is the Cartesian give me leave to say with an Ingenous Author Nec demum negaverim inquit animalium corpora esse Machinas miro artificio coagmentatas sed nihil esse quam Machinas qua nihil sentiant nihil agant ac pulsu tantum agitentur alieno id vero adduci non possum ut credam at que eos qui contradicunt appello an nullam in cane Venatico cum per compendia viarum leporem insequitur nullam in leporibus cum per varios flexus canes insequentes cludunt nullam in bestiis quae predâ vivunt aut cognitionem immo caliditatem varios ut it a dicam artes animadverterunt I will not deny saith he but that the Bodies of Animals are Machins by admirable Artifice compacted together but that they are nothing else but Machins without Sense and Action and only moved by Extern Impulse is a thing I can never be reduced to believe and I challenge those that contradict me to tell me Whether in a Hungting Dog that follows the Hare the shortest way or in a Hare indeavoring to delude the Dogs by her various turnings or in those Beasts that live upon the Prey they have not observed some Cognition Sagacity yea may I say Various Arts What do these Mechanics intend who do not only deprive Brutes of Cognition but also of Sense O absurdity contrary to common Experience Do we not daily see Brutes I mean the more perfect ones to receive Sounds in their Ears and thereby excited to Labour Meat Drink and divers Actions And who will deny that a Dog a Cat or an Ape do discern their Food by Smells And certainly this Hypothesis was not dreamt on when this Distic was made Nos Aper auditu Linx visu simia gustu Vultur odoratu praeceelit Aranea tactu That Brutes are Senseless and Inanimate things can no way be conceived how then could Spiders so Geometrically weave their Cobwebs and Bees so exactly form their Cellula's of an Hexagonic or Sexangular Figure How could Foxes by that craft and cunning catch Birds and deceive the Dogs that pursure them c. But that Brutes also have Immaterial Souls The Third Hypothesis then is that which seems to be most Genuine and Rational For if the Soul of Brutes be not Incorporeal the Soul of Man can never be proved to be Incorporeal for either all Conscious or Cogitative Beings are Incorporeal or else nothing can be evinced to be Incorporeal Those very things which we menrioned before to prove the Immateriality of the Soul of Man are apparently to be seen in Brutes as Activity Discoursive Faculty Uniformity Cogitation Cognition and Sagacity and the Actions we daily see performed by them seem more like the Actions of Rational Souls than of Dead and Senseless Matter as Doubting Resolving Inventing c. as is evident in Hawks Dogs Jaccals Foxes c. and then by the Docility of them and certain Continuate Actions of a long Tract of Time so orderly performed by them that they seem to argue Knowledge in them rather than to proceed from Brutish Matter Nay more in some Beasts there is Prescience of Future Events and Providences the Knowing of Things never seen before and such other Actions observed in some Living Creatures which seem to be even above the Reason that is in Man himself An Obje ∣ ction Neither indeed is the Objection of any consequence which our Adversaries would retort upon us That this Hypothesis supposeth also the Souls of Brutes to be Immortal which is a Notion dangerous and destructive say they to the Rules of Christianity To this I answer That there seems to be no great Reason why it should be thought absurd to grant Perpetuity of Duration to the Souls of Brutes any more than to every Atome of Matter or Particle of Dust in the whole World so that this Objection hath nothing of validity in it for they are Durable whether Corporeal or Incorporeal For Heaven and Earth and all the parts constituting the same will never be annihilated but metamorphized and changed And so the innumerable Company of Souls that were created by God may very well be supposed to survive their separation from the 〈…〉 which they actuate and so continue in a State of
Dissect the Bodies of other Living Creatures Democritus by his frequent Dissection of divers sorts of Animals is said to have first found out the proper Seat of the Bile Galen also accustom'd himself to the Dissection of Apes and Monkies Severinus Castellus Bronzerus Panarolus and many others were wont to Dissect the Bodies of dead Dogs But Asellius Dr. Harvey Walleus Bartholine Pecquet De Graaf and others did frequently cut open Dogs while they were alive and hereby found out the Lactean Veins the Circulation of the Blood the Thoracic Veins the Lymphaducts the Ductus Pancreaticus with its Acid Juice and many other useful Inventions by their diligent Scrutiny and Autopsy But our Discourse is to be limited to the Humane Body having chosen Man to be the sole Subject of this Treatise The Body of Man therefore as it is a Totum Quantitativum seu Integrale is divided by Galen and Hypocrates into Continentia The Division of the Parts of Mans Body Contenta Impetum Facientia that is into Solid Parts Humours and Spirits The Body of Man may also be divided either Ratione Finis or Ratione Materiae Ratione Finis The Principal Parts They are either Principal Parts or less Principal Parts The Principal Parts are the Liver the Heart and the Brain and the Vulgarly received Opinion is That the Veins have their Origin from the Liver the Arteries from the Heart and the Nerves from the Brain which they say are the Vessels that convey the Natural Vital and Animal Spirits thro the Body The less Principal Parts are either necessary The less Principal parts which are those without which an Animal cannot live as the Lungs the Ventricle the Intestines the Vesicula Bilaria the Porus Bilarius the Vesica Vrinaria c. Or not necessary as Caro Simplex in respect of the other Parts Ratione Materiae the Parts are either Simple Homogeneous and Simular or Compound Heterogeneous and Dissimular The Simular Parts are Ten. The Simular The Bones the Cartilages the Ligaments the Membranes the Fibres the Nerves the Arteries the Veins the Flesh and the Cutis The Dissimular The Dissimular Parts are the Members of the Body consisting of various Simular Parts They are also called Partes Organicae seu Instrumentales But the Modern and most Rational Division of the Body is into its Venters and Artus The Division of the Body into its Three Venters and Four Artus The Venters are Three the Infimus the lower Venter or the Abdomen which contains the Liver and the Natural Parts the Medius Venter or the Thorax which contains the Heart and Vital Parts the Venter Supremus or the Head wherein is contained the Brain and Animal Parts Having given the Division of the whole Body The Lower Venter its parts we shall now begin with the Lower Venter and this is all that Cavity which within is distinguished from the Thorax by the Diaphragm circumscribed by the Cartilago Ensiformis the Os Pubis Coxendicis and the Os Sacrum the Vertebrae of the Loins and on both sides by the Bastard Ribs the Fore-part of this is called Epigastrium the Lateral superior Part of which is called Hypocondrium which is next to the Inferior Cartilage of the Costae The Middle is Regio Vmbilicalis the two lateral Parts of which Aristotle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Laxitate and Galen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inania The Lower Part is Hypogastrium which descends from the Regio Vmbilicalis down to the Regio Pubis the Lateral Parts of which are called Ilia and in Flexu Femoris ad Pubem Inguina or the Groin Now this Venter consists of Exterior and Interior Parts The Exterior or Continent Parts are either Common which belong also to other Parts of the Body as the Cuticula the Cutis the Pinguedo with its Membrane the Panniculus Carnosus and the Membrana Musculorum propria or Proper only to this Venter as the Muscles of the Abdomen and the Peritoneum The Interior or Contained are those that serve either for Nutrition or for Procreation Those that serve for Nutrition belong either ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Chylification as the Ventricle the Omentum the Pancreas the Intestines with the Mesentery the Lactean Veins with the Common Receptacle and the Lymphatic Vessels or ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Sanguification as the Meseraic Veins the Vena Porta with its branches and the Vena Cava the Liver the Vesicula Bilaria the Spleen with the Vas Breve and the Hemorrhoids the Arteria Celiaca the Veins the Capsulae Atrabilariae the Ureters and the Bladder Those that serve for Generation are Vasa Spermatica the Corpora Varicosa or Parastatae the Testes the Vasa Deferentia the Prostatae the Vesiculae Seminariae and the Penis in Women the Vasa Ejaculatoria and the Vterus Having thus divided the Lower Venter we come now to speak of each of its parts in particular and the first is the Cuticula 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cuticula this is a thin and close Skin void of Life and Sense without Blood made of unxious crass and viscid Vapours condensed by the Circumambient Cold to cover the Cutis it is thicker than the Cutis least there should be too great an efflux of Spirits and Heat it is generated of an Excrement that hath its beginning in the Womb and afterwards its perfection and this is the reason why Infants newly born look so red as they commonly do In Moors and Aethiopians it is black Next to this is the Cutis The Cutis which is the Common Covering of the Body generated of Seed and Blood the Instrument of Touching and the Defence of the Parts that are under it it is perforated in various places for the ingress and egress of that which is necessary those Perforations that are conspicuous are the Mouth the Ears c. The Insensible are the Pores in this ther◠are observed several Nervous Filaments which Learned Cartesius calls the Organs of Sense Cartes de Homine which being moved by External Objects do accordingly make an Impression upon the Brain Under the Cutis is subjected the Pinguedo or Fat The Pinguedo or Fat which is a Simular Body without Sense made of unxious Blood concreted by the Cold of the Membranes for the defence of the whole it is not in those parts where it would hinder a convenient complication as in the Brain the Palpebrae the Penis the Scrotum and the Testium Membranae its Vessels are the three Veins of the Abdomen the Mamillary Veins the Venae Epigastricae elumbis emergentes its use is like a Garment to keep the Body warm to fill up the spaces between the Muscles the Vessels and the Skin to make the Body even smooth and round hence Lean Persons Old and Withered are Deformed Next is the Membrana Carnosa which is connexed to the Cutis by many Veins and Arteries The Membrana Musculorum
tumify at the same time when the Menstruums begin to flow In Old Women they grow flaccid and nothing apparent but the very Nipple the Fat and Glandules being all consumed The parts of this are the Papilla and the Mamilla the Papilla is an extuberance in the Center of it called the Nipple the ends of the Nerves and Arteries do concenter in it which is apparent from its exquisite Sense and Red Colour Hence it is compared to the Glans of the Penis for it may be erected by Contact and Suction and doth afterwards become flaccid Cancers and other Tumors about this part by Chyrurgeons are determined to be pernicious Hyppocrates tells us That if in a Woman with-child her Nipples turn upwards it is a Male if downwards a Female that she bears but the confession of Women hath not yet confirmed it It hath a Circle round about it called Areola which in Virgins is of a pale Colour in those that are big and give Suck brown in Old Women black It hath many little perforatons in the middle for the Milk to come forth its use is to enter the Mouth of the Infant that it might suck There is also a titillation in it whereby Mothers and Nurses by a pleasing kind of tickling and some sense of pleasure are inticed to exhibit their Breasts to the Infant The Mamilla is all that part beside the Nipple that swelleth and riseth above the circumjacent it hath many Glandules which in Virgins are more hard in those that are big and give Suck they are more swelled their use is for the preparation of Milk there is a great consent between these and the Womb hence as soon as ever the Infant is Born the Blood is no longer carried to the Womb but to the Breasts and thence Milk is generated hence those that give Suck have very seldom their Monthly Terms and sometimes the Children draw forth Blood instead of Milk yea which is matter of greatter admiration the Menstruous Blood sometimes hath been observed to come from the Breasts and Milk carried thro the Womb and thence evacuated How Milk is generated it is not easy to determine and I will not stay here to debate the Controversy whether it is carried with the Blood by the Thoracic Arteries Some Conjectures how Milk is generated and secern'd there-from by the Glandules of the Mammae or whether the Chyle ascends to the Breast thro the Milky Veins from the Mesentery or whether as the Learned Dr. Wharton thought a peculiar Juice drawn from the Nerves and added to the Chyle doth make Milk The use of the Mammae first is to be a defence to the Heart hence Men of a Colder and more Effeminate Constitution have great Breasts and Women that are almost deâ—â—itute of them have Manlike Voices Secondly They serve for the Generation Segregation or Depuration of the Milk for the Nutrition of the Infant Thirdly For the Adorning and Beautifying the Body The Diaphragm is the partition between the Lower and Middle Venters The Diaphragm it is a singular Muscle of a different Figure and Action from all the rest its Situation is transverse and something oblique declining downwards its Figure is circular its Substance fleshy but in the middle nervous and membranous for the Center appears to be a thin Skin and a nervous Circle instead of a Tendon if this be wounded Death ensues The use of this is to cause a free respiration to help the Muscles of the Abdomen in the expulsion of Excrements and the Foetus to promote the distribution of the Chyle to distinguish the Vital Parts from the Natural to which some add that this is the Seat of Laughter because the Nerves of the Diaphragm have several ramifications in the Muscles of the Lips and the Cheeks hence in the percussion of that part the Muscles of the Face being contracted and Lips with the Cheeks moved Laughter ariseth The Cause of Sardonian Laughter but this is not true Laughter but only that which is called Risus Sardonius for the Spleen is the proper Seat of Laughter according to that Distich Cor ardet Pulmo loquitur Fel commovet Iras Splen ridere facit cogit amare Jecur The Heart doth burn the Lungs do speak the Gall doth Anger move The Spleen doth laugh the Liver stirs up Love Hence Melancholy and Splenetic Persons are more prone to laugh than others In the fore-part of the Chest is the Sternum at the end of which is the sharp pointed Cartilage called Cartilago Ensiformis and on both sides are placed the Ribs The Ribs which are commonly twelve on each side Melancton saith that Adam had thirteen but it is greatly to be question'd Fallopius saith he saw two several times thirteen and Riolan once The upper seven are called Verae true Ribs because they reach the Sternum the five lower ones are called Nothae or Bastard Ribs because of their shortness The Pleura is a thin Skin investing the inward parts of the Middle Region The Pleura the Seat of the Pleurisie as the Peritoneum doth the Lower this is that part that is affected in the Pleurisie tho Late Writers demonstrate that the effect of this part doth only secondarily happen in that Peracute Distemper The Mediastinum is a Skin of the same kind The Mediastinum dividing the Cavity of the Thorax and the Lungs into two distinct parts To this is joyned the Thymus in the Throat or upper part of the Thorax between the division of the Subclavian Veins and the Arteries this is of a glandulous spongy soft and white Substance in Children newly born it is distinguisht by a three-fold and large Glandule but in the adult it is extenuated by heat for want of moisture Its use is to be a prop to the Vessels that ascend by it viz. the Vena Cava the great Artery and their branches spreading into the Arms and Scapulae and to defend them lest they should be hurt by attaching the Bone The Pericardium The Pericardium otherwise the Chamber Chest or Pannicle of the Heart is a Membrane incompassing the whole Heart so far distant from it as may suffice for its motion and the containing that Liquor which is found within its cavity It s use is to be the Domicil of the Heart and to contain in it a Whey and Watery Liquor not unlike Urine to moisten and refrigerate the Heart and so render its motion more facil Whence proceeded that Water that issued out of our Saviours side This is that Liquor that came forth out of the Side of out Blessed Savior when pierced mixed with Blood for it is said Out of his Side came forth Water and Blood The Heart is one of the principal Parts of an Animal The Heart It is not situated in the left side as soine imagine the Fountain of Life it is situated in the middle of the Body that so the Blood and Spirits might fitly be distributed thro the
whole Body it is of every side encompassed by the Lungs yet its Motion is perceived most on the left Side 1st Because the great Artery is on that Side The reason why it beats more on the left side than on the right and the Cavity of the left Ventricle far exceeds that of the right and in this the Vital Spirit is contained Hence it is vulgarly reputed altho erroneously That the Heart hath its residence on the left Side and some Practitioners apply Cordial Epithems only to the left Side 2dly The Vena Cava being on the right Side and there ascending thro the Thorax the Heart cannot conveniently decline that way It is of a Conic Figure the upper part is called the Basis or Radix of it the lower Muâ—ro Vertex Apex or the Cone of the Heart its primary Action is to be the Fountain of Heat this is manifest by that Disease called a Syncope and other defects of the Heart where its Heat is intercepted for then the Members of the Body destitute do faint and lose their brisk Activity wherewith they were before actuated Hence Cordials profit in such Affects How Cordials help the Heart in Syncope's by exciting the almost extinguisht Heat and stirring up the drooping Spirits this Heat is not caused only by the Motion of the Heart as the Carâ—eâ—ians say it is for there is implanted Heat in the Heart before its Motion and Motion is only the Preserver and not the Producer of Heat in the Heart but this Heat is excited by an Ebullition whereby the Blood dilating it self requires a more ample space and so breaks forth just as the mixture of Lime and Water produces an Ebullition and Flower of Brimstone mingled with Spirit of Turpetine and Salt of Tartar with Aqua fortis causes a great Fervescency 3dly Another great use of the Heart is to turn Chyle into Blood to be the Organ of Sanguification and to perfect and renew the depauperated Blood that returns in the Veins in its Circulation Another use of it is to move continually Hence it keeps the Blood from Putrefaction makes it more elaborate kindles that Vital Flame that 's in it and disperses it as a Nutriment adapted to every part This Motion is called the Pulse The Pulse which is continual and never ceasing stirred up by the Blood flowing into it and the Pulsive Faculty resident therein this consists of Systole Diastole It s Systole Diastole and Perisystole and Perisystole Systole the proper and natural motion of the Heart is a Contraction of it into a narrow compass that so the contained Blood might be forc'd from the right Ventricle thro the Arterial Vein into the Lungs and from the left thro the Arteria Aorta into the whole Body The Diastole which is Accidentary and not so properly called a Motion as the Systole because it is a Passion rather than an Action is a Dilatation of the Heart that it might draw in the Blood thro the Vena Cava into the right Ventricle and thro the Arteriae Venosa into the left Perisystole is the space of rest between the two preceding Motions In every Systole the Heart doth plentifully receive the Blood and in every Diastole it plentifully expels it After Dr. Harvey had found out the Circulation of the Blood laying down such evident and infallible Demonstrations as compell'd all to believe it yet many ignorant of the Fabric and Motion of the Heart thought that a few Drops a Scruple or a Dram at the most of Blood was thrown out of the Heart at every Pulse and so imagined that the Mass of Blood in the Body is many hours yea some days circulating thro the Body Yet I must acknowledg my Self to be a Proselyte of that Learned and Famous Physician Dr. Lower Dr. Lower De Corde who hath wrote an Excellent Book of the Heart and also of Exquisite Dr. Charleton The Circulation of the Blood the Author of Oeconomia Animalis That the whole Mass of Blood doth not only once or twice but very often pass thro the Heart in the space of an hour For if we compute how much Blood flows into the Ventricles of the Heart when it is dilated how much emptied out of it when it is contracted how many Pulses there are in an hour how much Blood there is contained in the whole Body we shall easily evince this Assertion for by Autopsy it appears and by the experience and testimony of Renowned Harvey that in a Healthful Man the left Ventricle of the Heart will at once contain two Ounces and so much is thrown out at every Systole and that there are Two thousand Pulses in the space of an hour which is the least Computation of all for Waeleus and Regius have numbred Three thousand and in some Four thousand Plempius 4450 Slegelius 4876 Rolfincius 4420 and Bartholine on his own Wrist 4400. tho these differ according to the Age Temperament and Diet c. And suppose that in a Man there are Twenty five Pounds of Blood which is a greater quantity than is granted either by Nature or Anatomists for the quantity of Blood contained in a Humane Body seldom exceeds Twenty five pound and is seldom under Fifteen If we suppose two Ounces of Blood received and thrown out at every Pulse and Two thousand Pulses in an hour How often the Blood circulates thro the Body in an hour the number of Ounces that pass thro the Heart in that space make up Three hundred thirty two pound Hence it necessarily follows that the whole Mass of Blood circulates thro the Body thirteen times every hour but seeing so great a quantity of Blood is seldom found in the Body of a sound Man and so few pulses in the space of an hour Vid. Dr. Lower de Corde it is very congruous to reason that the Blood passes thro the Heart more than Thirteen Times in an hour At the Basis of the Heart there are two Processes called Anricula their use is to receive the Blood and Air least it suddenly rush into the Heart and cause a Suffocation there are also on both sides two large Cavities which are called the Ventricles of the Heart of which the right receives the Blood from the Vena Cava to supply the Lungs and sends it into the left Ventricle to make the Vital Spirit and Arterial Blood of that Blood prepared in the right Ventricle and transmitted thro the Septum and the Lungs and of the Air drawn in thro the Mouth and Nostrils prepared in the Lungs and sent thro the Arteria Venosa with the Blood into the left Ventricle of the Heart The use of both these Ventricles is to generate and perfect the Arterial Blood to receive the Venal Blood make it more perfect and expel it thro the Arteries into the extreme parts of the Body and that they may thereby be nourish'd Between these two Ventricles there is an Interstitium or Partition called
Ears are called Tempora the Temples the superior part of the Face is called Frons The Inferior Parts are the Eyes the Nose the Ears and the Mouth in whch is contained the Tongue and other Parts The Pericranium and Periostium We shall begin with the Pars Capillata or hairy Part of this Venter the extern Membranes of this are two the Pericranium and the Periostium which encompass the Cranium The inward Membrances which enclose the Brain under the Cranium are the Dura Mater and the Pia Mater The Dura Mater and Pia Mater the Dura Mater oâ— Carssa Menynx divides the Cerebrum from the Cerebellum and the Brain into its right and left Parts and so constitutes four Sinus's oâ— Ventricles the receptacles of Blood and Spirits besides these four Sinus's there are three more one at the bottom of the Calx the other two lateral ones Their use is to receive the Arterial Blood The Ventricles of the Brain which is superfluous in the Nutrition of the Brain and the generation of Animal Spirits and from these proceeds that Blood that is evacuated at the Nostrils The outward part of the Brain is called Cortex the inward Medulla The Cortex is soft but of on Ash Colour which some think ariseth from the innumerable Veins there disseminated the Medulla is more hard and compact of a white Colour it hath two Parts the one Globose which hath three Cavities or Ventricles the other Oblong called Medulla Oblongata where is the fourth Ventricle in which the Animal Spirits are generated and here is the Origen of all the Nerves as this Part descends down to the Spine so it is called Medulla Spinalis The Motion of the Brain consisting of a Systole and Diastole The Brain is observed by some to have a Motion consisting of a Systole and Diastole in its Diastole or Dilatation it draws in the Vital Spirits with the Arterial Blood and Air thro the Nostrils In its Systole or Contraction it forceth the Animal Spirits therein elaborated into the Nerves The Cerebellum hath the same Substance Colour Motion and Use with the Cerebrum only it hath several circular Gyrations in an exact Order which the Cerebrum hath not it hath two Processes called Processus vermi-formes whose use is that the Calamus Scriptâ—rius being press'd by the Cerebellum might not be obstructed thereby The other Parts observed in the Brain are the Rete Mirabile the Glandula Pituitaria the Infundibulum the Corpus Callosum the Fornix the Plexus Choroides the Glandula Pinealis c. The Rete Mirabile or Plexus Retiformâ—s is at the Basis of the Cerebrum it consists of Carotid and Cervical Arteries brought up from the Heart to the Basis of the Brain and bring in them Blood and Vital Spirits to this Rete for the first preparation of the Animal Spirits The Glandula Pituitaria The Glandula Pituitaria is of a harder and more compaâ—â— Substance than other Glandules it receives the Excrements of the Brain thro the Infundibulum and throws them out upon the Palate The Infundibulum The Infundibulum is an Orbicular Cavity made of the Pia-mater it hath four little Channels saith Riolan which distil the flegmatic Serum thro their four Foramina or little Perforations it hath two Glandules or Protuberances of the Brain thro which the Infundibulum receives the Serum from the Ventricles they do also stop and impede the great Impulse of that Matter that is carried to the Infundibulum least it should thereby be too much dilated or broken The Corpus Callosum The Corpus Callosum is in the Medulla of the Brain where its Substance is harder and where the two anterior Ventricles make two Extuberances it is distinguisht by a thin lax and wrinkled Membrane called Septum Lucidum because when extended and exposed to the Light it is Pellucid the inferior white part of it where the two Ventrâ—â—â—â— are joyn'd together is of a triangular Figure Between the first Ventricle and the Fornix The Plexus Choroides is formed the Plexus Choroides its Contexture is of Veins and Arteries its use is the same with the Rete Mirabile The Glandula Pinealis its use The Glandula Pinealis is a Glandule of a conic Figure it is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conarion by others the Penis of the Brain its use is the same with that of the other Glandules but especially to distribute the Vessels of the Brain Cartes and his Followers imagined the Soul to reside in this part of the Brain Cartesius and his Followers Regius Hogelandus and Meyssonierius say that this Glandule being placed in the middle of the Ventricles which are always distended with Spirits doth receive the Motion of all Objects and the Soul being placed here doth by these Motions apprehend all sensible Species or rather external Idea's which proceed from the five Senses and as it were in the Center of them discerns them all and then by the help of this it sends the Spirits to the Nerves just as all things that are conspicuous in a large Field are in their Order represented in a little Spheric Looking-glass This therefore according to Cartes is the common Seat of Sense and Imagination but because many of the Cartesian Sentiments of the Soul contrary to our Hypothesis depend upon the verity of this Assertion I shall here take occasion to manifest the falsity of it For 1. This is too exile and obscure a Body to represent the Species of all things clearly Eight Reasons why it cannot be the Seat of the Soul for the Species of one thing would impede and hinder the Species of another it being of too small a Magnitude and therefore the Cartesians being conscious of this to make their Hypothesis more plausible make it a great deal bigger in their Cutts and Pictures than really it is 2. The Species of all the Senses cannot arrive hither because the Nerves do not touch this Glandule 3. It is situated in the place of Excrements where they are excern'd thro the third and the two anterior Ventricles and certainly here the Species would be greatly contaminated which Le Forge a Cartesian is forc'd to grant 4. There then would be a great Confusion of different Ideas in this Corpuscle for the Species must remain there otherwise there would be no Memory 5. There is no Duct or Passagâ— from this Glandule to the Nerveâ— neither any communion with the Nerves of the extern Senses 6. This Glandule is bigger iâ— those Animals which the Cartesiaâ— will have to be void of reason 7. It is sometimes found to bâ— full of Sand and little Stones without any hurt to the Reason sometimes it is black and infected how then can it be capable of performing such noble Operations 8. There was never any propeâ—… Motion seen in it but only violenâ—… either of the whole Brain its Concussion or some extern Flatulencieâ—… for it
repugnant to the Opinion of the Ancients they holding that these four first qualities Gassendus as they call them are essential to and deduced from the four Elements but we from the Magnitude Figure and Motion of Atoms as Hot or Colorific Atoms are those that are Exile in Magnitude Sphaericin Figure and Swift in Motion What Heat is and what Cold. Cold or Frigorific Atoms are not so Exile in Magnitude of a Tetrahedic or Pyramidal Figure consisting of four Sides or equilateral Triangles which is a Figure most opposite to a Sphere and they are slow in Motion What we are to understand by Moisture and Driness Moisture is but a Species of Fluidity which consists in the smoothness of the Parts and the interspersion of Inanity for Quick-silver and melted Lead are Fluid Bodies yet not Humid and Siccity or Driness is a meer Privation of Humidity I shall not therefore treat of the Temperaments according to those Qualities but according to the number of the Humours tho there also we cannot in all things agree with the Ancients as I shall hereafter declare The Temperaments rightly distinguisht according to the number of the four Humours The Humours are four Blood Choller Phlegm and Melancholy and in whatsoever Persons any of these Humours are predominant their Temperament hath its denomination thence so that from hence we learn that there are four sorts of Temperaments The Sanguine wherein Blood the Choleric wherein Choler or Bile the Phlegmatic wherein Phlegm the Malancholic wherein Melancholy hath the predominancy I shall now lay down the Characters of every of them whereby any intelligent Person by a diligent perusal of the following Specimen and a due reflection upon himself may easily be informed what Constitution Temperament or Complexion he is of I shall begin with the Sanguine The Sanguine Constitution described The Sanguine hath the preheminence before any of the rest those of this Complexion are hot and moist the habit of their Body is Fleshy and well Compact not Fat neither too Lean for the heat doth not emaciate and make Lean the Body being alone predominant and so consume the Body but it is qualified with a proportionality of Moisture which serves for Fuel for the vivifying Heat neither is the Body made gross and fat by the abundance of Moisture which affords Vapors by which Fat is generated it being well tempered with a sufficient quantity of Heat which dissipates the abounding Humidity the first of which effects always happens in the Choleric Complexion which is hot and dry and the other in Phelgmatic which is quite contrary to that viz. Cold and Moist The streams of fluid Blood that circulate in the Veins and Arteries are briskly agitated by the penetrating particles of Fire and these ignite Particles are kept from causing a Conflagration in the mass of Blood by the Moisture whereby it is duly moderated so that the Heat actuates and enlivens the Moisture and the Moisture supplies the Heat with a sufficient Pabulum hence for the most part the Colour of their Face is fresh and flourishing the delicate Sanguine Liquor flowing thro its proper Vessels causeth the Cheeks to be tinctur'd with a Crimson Red their Hair also which is an Excrement resembles the predominant Humour for it is either of a bright or light Colour which by its glistering Eradiations manifests the Body from which it results to abound with Spirits or else it is Red the very colour of the Humour whereof it is generated They are very Active Brisk Lively Vigorous Spirituous very Cheerful and Merry and of a smiling Countenance by reason of Spirits wherewith they of this Complexion do most of all abound their Imagination is very pregnant and comprehensive because impressions are easily made upon things that are Moist tho not so long retained hence they are very subject to Oblivion and Forgetfulness yet some do frequently commit Actions which manifest Stolidity as immoderate Laughing and Impudence in others too much Bashfulness and others Actions of Folly In Discourse they are commonly very free and liberal they have an extraordinary Propension and Inclination to Love being very much influenc'd by Venus and Cupid and have very impetuous desires after Venereal Pleasures tho not so much as those that are Choleric by reason of the acrimony of the Seed in that Constitution They sleep indifferently well not so much as those that are Phlegmatic they are nimble in Motion and Exercise but soon weary they have a moderate Appetite unless Humours abound whereby it is clog'd and satiated also a moderate Thirst their Pulse is great yet slow they have frequent and copious Evacuations of Blood at Nose in the Haemorrhoids and Women thro those passages which Nature hath destin'd to carry the Superfluity of Humours that abound in that moist Sex in their periodic or monthly Evacuations Their Urine as to its quantity is very copious as to its quality it is of a laudible Colour and good Consistency Their Skin to the touch is hot and soft their Vessels are very large and Veins very conspicuous they are very subject to a Plethora and very obnoxious to Feavers and other Acute Distempers These are the Signs of the Sanguine Complexion the next is the Choleric which is the hot and dry Complexion They of this Constitution are always Lean The Choleric Constitution Pale or Yellow especially under their Eyes their Hair is Yellow imitating the Colour of Bile â—â—metimes blackish where the Choler is more adust they are soon Bald by reason of Siccity which is here the predominant quality they are of a sharp Wit very solert and crafty of an expedite Ingeny they are prone to Anger Fury Rage Audacity Boldness Boasting Bragging and desire of Revenge They sleep very little they dream of Fires Burnings Scoldings Fightings and Tumults they have exquisite Sense and are very quick in Hearing their Pulse is great and quick they have very little Appetite sometimes loath eating especially in the Summer they love those Meats most that are cold but they find great prejudice by fasting they have an insatiable Thirst and drink frequently they grow apace and quickly wax Old because their radical Moisture is soon consumed by the abundance of heat they have a wonderful proclivity to Venery because of the acrimony of their Seed they are very much injur'd by the immoderate use of it because their Spirits 〈◊〉 easily dissipated by reason of their tenuity They are prone to all bilose Distempers as Tertian Agues Phrensies Pleurisies Vomitings Diarrheas Erisipala's Shingles Pushes and Pimples on their Faces The next is the Phlegmatic Constitution they of this Temperament are Cold and Moist Signs of the Phlegmatick Temperament the colour of their Skin is white they are fat and obese yet not fleshy their Hair is brown and streight they are cold to the touch especially their Hands and Feet they have a tollerable Imagination and indifferent good Perception but a very shallow
Palate or Nostrils likwise it falls from the Pituitary Glandules situate about the Basis of the Brain and is also seperated by the Glandulae Sublinguales and other Spongy Parts of the Jaws and Mouth and so becomes Spittle Melancholy is a Cold and Dry Sediment of the Blood in colour Black in Taste sowre and sharâ— seperated by the Parenchyma of the Spleen for the Blood brought hither by the Celiacal Arterie and passing thro many turnings and windings and as it were percolating thro the Parenchyma doth leave behind some salt and earthy parts which after they have undergone some alteration by their mutual Action one upon another by their attrition and justling in their passages thro the several Cells Cavities and Pores of the Parenchyma are by the fresh Blood which continually flows thither by perpetual Circulation carried back thro the Veins into the Mass of Blood in which they serve for a most useful and effectual Ferment and whatsoever of this Acid Humour is unfit to ferment the Mass of Blood it is sent out and discharged with the Serum by Urine and tho this Hypothesis of the Spleen being the Receptacle of Melancholy be by many Anatomists exploded yet Bartholine Waleus and Highmore do still assert it viz. That as the Liver doth secern the Bile so likewise the Spleen doth seperate a certain Acid Liquor from the Blood which may be called Melancholy When this Ferment once grows too Sharp and Acid The true Rice and Origin of Splenetic and Hypochondriac Affects and acquires parts apt to provoke irritate and prick the sensible parts of the Body and the Fixed Salt becomes Fluid it presently infects the whole stream of Blood puts it into violent and disorderly Motions vellicates the Nervous Parts fixes the Spirits puts all the Humours into strange confusion and makes them apt to congeal and stagnate and hence those Hypochondraic Affects which usually molest Melancholy Persons have their Rice and Origin for in those that labour under these Distempers all the Fixed Salts of the Blood which circulate thro the Spleen are there made Fluid and at length come to prevail over the other Principles of the Blood and turn the whole stock of it into a Liquor as sharp as Vinegar or Spirit of Vitriol by which means all the Spirits are depressed and kept under Sowre Belchings and Vomitings ensue violent and irregular Motions and boyling Ebullitions of the Blood which direful Maladies are soonest cured by those Medicines which abounding with Fixed Salts do precipitate the Blood as those extracted from Steel Tartar Vitriol and all Testacious Bodies as likewise Diuretic Remedies for we find by experience that these Medicines do sweeten all sharp Liquors and abate their pungency for the Acrimony of Salt is not blunted by Sulphureous but Saline Bodies by reason that Fixed Salts by an intimate and close Union to the Fluid do obtund their points and edges thus the corroding sharpness of the Spirit of Vitriol is taken away by Salt of Tartar or Wormood and saith Fonseca Salt of Tartar hath a great power in allaying the turbulent Acrimony of Melancholic Humours for by an intrinsic property in attracts all their sharpness Thus if we distil an Ounce of Tartar with two quarts of the strongest Vinegar a Water will arise without any Acidity And truly it is very probable that the reason why Melancholy Persons find so much benefit from Medicines of Tartar is that by sweetning the Blood and Juice in the same manner as that dulcifies Vineger the Tartar frees the Body from those inconveniences which are caused by their pungency and acrimony The way and manner how the Blood doth degenerate from a sweet and balsamic Constitution into a Liquor altogether sharp harsh and unpleasant and how this alteration is effected ought a little to be enquired into As long as the small passages in the Spleen remain free and open and the Substance or Parenchyma of it is not grown so hard and earthy as to alter the Natural Position and Shape of the Pores the supply of a well prepared Ferment is duly and regularly performed but if either from a Natural or Melancholic Constitution or Errors in Diet the Substance of the Spleen be render'd too compact and solid and the Pores and Spaces are altered from their Natural Figure and Magnitude the Saline Particles in their percolation thro the Spleen are so worn and grinded that they are not only seperated from the Sulphur and Phlegm which is necessary for the making of a Ferment but likewise forcibly disjoyned from the Earthy Principle without which they cannot remain fixt but presently become fluid and then instead of a Ferment which should maintain in the Blood an orderly and moderate Ebullition a sharp eager and pungent Liquor is sent into the Blood which puts in into irregular and tumultuous Fermentations and renders the whole Frame and Crasis of the Body disorderly If we consult the Symptoms of Hypochondriac Persons first their Appetite to Meat by reason of the sharpness of the Ferment in the Stomach is often too extravagant yet the Meat is ill digested and much of it turned into sowre Water and hence the Stomach being provoked and convelled by the gnawing Acidity of its Menstruum these persons are troubled with continual Spitting sometimes loathing and vomiting they are usually Costive and their Faeces very black by reason of the Vitriolic Acidity which produces that Colour their Urine is generally high-colour'd like a strong Lie because the Salt not being sufficiently volatilized and breathed out thro the Pores is sent down in the Serum thro the Urinary Passages they find also about their Breast a great Oppression Straitness and Difficulty of Breathing and sometimes fall into Astmatic Paroxisms Moreover They complain of a great trembling and palpitation of the Heart of a great weight and oppression of it which Symptoms proceed partly from the sharpness of the Nervous Juice which grateâ— and vellicates the Nerves and is apt to stagnate in them and partly from the Blood which is not well and regularly fixed in the Heart hence proceed acute and wandring Pains about the Mediastinum and Shoulders and sometimes such as imitate the Cholic and Nephritic Passions Thus tho this Acid Juice according to Helmont and Sylvius may be very useful in some parts of the Body and tho it may serve for a useful Ferment yet too great a quantity of it in the Blood may cause a Disease and indicate an Evacuation but it is now high time for me to return from this Digression Assimulation Membrification or the third Concoction We come now to the third Concoction which is the third Office in the Nutritive Function and that is Membrification or Assimulation this is performed when the Nutritive Juice is sufficiently prepared and by the Impulse of the conveying Vessels is brought near to the parts that are to be nourished and there by an Appositionâ— Agglutination and Transmutation all which must in order succeed each
other is united to them The Material or Constitutive Principle of this is now commonly reputed not to be the Blood tho Aristotle greatly contended for it and the School of Physicians hath given its Suffrage to verify this Tenent but a certain sweet mild and balsamic Liquor analogous to the White of an Egg out which a Chicken is formed The next is the Vital Function The Vital Function this is that whereby Vital Spirits are generated in the Heart for the Conservation of Life in the whole Body Life primarily consisting in the procreation of Heat and Spirits and their due Contemperations with the Blood and Members of the Body and hereby vivifying them it is most necessary a living Body should be furnished with them and seeing that they are dissipable and soon ready to be spent the Body would soon be left in a state altogether inactive and liveless were it not supplied by a continual Generation of Vital Spirits By Vital Spirits I mean nothing else but the more fine What Vital Spirits are volatile aetherial sublim'd and subtiliz'd part of the Blood by which the Fermentation and Intern Motion of the Particles in that Liquor is maintained and that in its Circular Motion preserved from Stagnation and Coagulation and when the Body remains in a state of Health a seperation is continually made of all Immiscible and Heterogeneous Bodies which are either taken in with the Aliment or else come in the Blood from the Ambient The Archeus of the Pseudochymists a meer Fiction This is that Vital Flame I before mentioned and it is nothing else that the Pseudochymists do understand by that great Term their Noble Archeus that Vox praeterea Nihil To the Conservation of this Lamp of Life or the Generation of Vital Spirits there are two Actions or Motions subservient viz. Pulsation and Respiration Pulsation how performed Pulsation is not made a Motive Faculty inherent in the Blood either in respect of its Ebullition and Rarefaction or Vection and Attraction but partly by the Influx of the Blood distending the Ventricles of the Heart and partly by that pulsific Faculty residing in that Fountain of Life this Pulsation consists of three parts the Systole the Diastole and the Perisystole or intermediate rest The Systole is the Contraction of the Heart to a narrower compass expelling the Blood contained in the right Ventricle thro the Vena Arteriosa into the Lungs and that contained in the left into the great Arterie and so into all the parts of the Body Hence we may see the reason why the Motion of the Heart is most sensibly perceived on the left side without imagining the Heart to be more situate on that side than on the other The Diastole is a Dilatation of the Heart to receive the Blood in the right Ventricle out of the Vena Cava and into the left out of the Arteria Venosa The Perisystole is a certain quiet or short rest between the Systole and Diastole but of this see more pag. 108. Respiration it s two parts Inspiration and Expiration Respiration is an Act of the Lungs and Thorax consisting of two contrary Motions alternately successive Inspiration and Expiration Inspiration is caused by the Dilatation of the Lungs and Breast that so the Ambient Air might be received Expiration is the Contraction or Compression of those Parts whereby the same Air is expelled just as the Air is received in and expelled by a pair of Bellows The use of Respiration is not as hath been vulgarly held by the Ancients to refrigerate or cool the heat of the Heart for we see Air blown out of a pair of Bellows doth not any way extinguish but promote the accension of Fire but the use of Respiration is as Dr. Charleton saith 1. The use of Respiration in Eight particulars To subtilize the Blood and by the admistion of Air make it more convenient Fuel for the Lamp of Life and matter of Vital Flame 2. Or as Dr. Henshaw ingeniously supposeth To perform the Office of a Tonic Motion which is wanting in the Lungs for saith he In all the Musculary Parts of the Body there is a Natural Contraction of the Fibres whereby the Blood proceeding from the Heart and diffusing it self thro these parts is expelled thence and caused to recede to its Fountain again now the Lungs being a lax spongy and Parenchymous part is devoid of this Motion and certainly did not Respiration supply its defect it would soon be overwhelmed with the redundancy of Blood coming upon them and so a Suffocation of the Animal would immediately ensue 3. It serves for the Creation of Voice whether Articulate or Inarticulate 4 For the distribution of Chyle both out of the Stomach and Guts thro the Venae Lactea into the grand Receptacle and out of that Receptacle into the Ductus Chyliferi 5. For the Exclusion of Excrements 6. For Smelling 7. For Coughing Sternutation Excretion and Emunction 8. To assist the Body in any strange violent Motion The Sensitive Function The next is the Sensitive Function this is that whereby a Man doth exercise his Sense Whether or no Sense be performed by the Influx of Animal Spirits I cannot here determine there being so many almost inextricable difficulties on both sides The Senses are commonly known to be five The number of the Senses The Visive Auditive Tactive Gustive and Olfactive or Seeing Hearing Touching Tasting and Smelling each of which Senses have their proper Organs In every Sensation there are these four things requisite What things are requisite in every Sensation First An Instrument well disposed Secondly A proportionate Object Thirdly An adapted Medium Fourthly A convenient distance between the Object and the Instrument The Loco-motive Function The next Function in order is the Loco-motive whereby a Man performs local and voluntary Motion the Instruments that Nature hath supplied a Humane Body with for the performance of this are Muscles Tendons Ligaments and the Junctures of the Bones The Enunciative Function The Enunciative is that Function whereby a Man expresses the Sentiments of his Mind by his Voice the Organs of this Function are the Lungs the Aspera Arteria the Mouth that the Voice might be at pleasure either intended or remitted the Tube of this Arterie is furnished with Ringy Cartilages the lower of which if when contracted the attracted Air doth meet How a strong and a weak Voice is caused there is instantly caused a strong percussion and hence a great Voice results but by the uppermost a smaller re-percussion is made And hence an acute and squeeking Voice ariseth and that the sound after it is modelled in the Larynx might be articulated Nature hath given us a Throat Tongue Lips Teeth and Nostrils The Generative Function The last of all the Functions is the Generative this was appointed for the multiplying of Mankind it is from the mutual Congress of two Sexes the prolific
Seed being emitted from both and treasured up in the Magazine of the Females Womb that the first Rudiments of a tender Foetus do emerge There being abundance of Natures Curiosity under this Head I shall take occasion a little to amplifie hereupon and shall treat of 1. The Nature and Origin of the Seed 2. The Manner and Signs of Conception 3. The Formation of the Child in the Womb and its Position 4. The Manner of its Exit or Coming forth The Nature and Origin of Seed The Seed is a Humid and Spirituous Substance elaborated in the Testicles from the residue of the third Concoction or from the Arterial Blood having a prolific Vertue and concurring to the procreating of the Foetus not only Virtually but also Materially The Efficient cause of Spermification is the Parenchyma of the Testicles these by their hot and moist Temperature and also an Intrinsic Specific Propriety doth convert the Arterial Blood into Sperm which after it is here prepared is reconded in the Seminary Vessels and if there be a redundancy that which abounds is either carried back thro the Spermatic Veins to the Heart or goes to the Nutrition of the Testicles or else is excern'd thro the Lymphaducts for without the Testicles Seed is not unless extraordinarily generated for it is from them that the Seed receives both its Form and Colour and if a Conception happen from one that is castrated it is by reason of some Seed before the Amputation of them prepared and reconded Women also do emit Seed and have likewise for that purpose Testicles given them by Nature In the Seed there are two parts The Spirituous part and the Colliquament The Spirituous Part is that which causeth in the Seed a Turgency and Frothiness by reason of the extream Mobility and Volability of the Spirits The Crass Colliquament is that moist and watery Substance which manifestly appears when the Spirits vanish and evaporate for it then lays down its Whiteness and Spumosity This fruitful Liquor by its prolific Vertue after the Spermatic Contact in Coition doth so affect the Vterus of the Female as to impregnate it with Fecundity and make it also become Prolific which having received this Plastic Generative Power communicated to it from the Male doth put this Power into exercise and so procreateth its own like and truly the Vertue proceeding from the Male doth so largely fructifie the whole Female that it produceth a thoro Change and Alteration as well in the Frame of their Minds as Constitution of their Bodies 2. The Manner and Signs of Conception Conception the Manner of it The Vterus of the Female by the previous Converse she hath had with the Male and his Incitements which he useth to entice her as also by Natures own Inclination and Tendency is adapted for Conception which preparaion of the Vterus consists in this First The Vterus appears thicker and more fleshy and afterwards in the interior Superfice which is the place where the future Conception is to be received groweth more tender answering in Lubricity and tenderness the intern Ventricles of the Brain in some places it hath little Knobs which do swell inward and become exceeding soft the Vterus thus reduced to a state of Maturity and Coition immediately succeeding the Seeds of both Sexes being effused at the same time the Males into the Neck of the Vterus and thâ— Females into the Cavity of her own Matrix the Womb being endued with the property of attracting and drawing to it self the Virile Seed it greedily sucks it in and there the Seed of both Sexes being exactly mixt together and strictly contained within the Confines of the Vterus the whole Body of the Womb doth contract it self and the intern Orifice of it becomes so closely shut that the Point of the sharpest Needle cannot be admitted the two sorts of Seed there reconded are cherished by the Heat of the Vterus and thereby their Heat and Spirit stirred up and the Plastic Vertue which before lay Dormant there is now reduced into Act and hence immediately Conception ensues The Signs of which are these Seven Manifest Signs of Conception 1. A kind of horror and trembling after Coition which is caused by the Contraction and drawing together the Womb. 2. Retention of the Seed If the Seed fall not out again we may Conjecture there is Conception 3. A close Occlusion of the Orifice of the Vterus 4. A Suppression of the Natural Courses 5. A Swelling Hardness and Pain in the Breast 6. A Languid Appetite and Desire of Venery 7. A Nauseating and Loathing of Meat 3. The Manner of the Formation of the Foetus and its Position in the Womb. The Efformative Vertue being now excited by the Heat of the Womb doth wrap up the whole Seminal Matter into two Membranes or Tunics the one is called Chorion and the other Amnios and in seven days time after the Conception the Lineaments of the Spermatic Parts begin to appear for if a Geniture after the seventh day suffer an untimely Exit and be cast into Water there will appear in it three little Bubbles which are the Rudiments of the three Principal Parts and abundance of little Filaments which are the Threds of the other Spermatic Parts All the Spermatic Parts are perfected in Males in the space of Thirty Days in Females in Forty the fleshy Parts in Males are perfect in Three Months in Females in Four and then the Foetus begins to be quick The Spermatic Parts are generated of the Seed of both Sexes but the Fleshy Parts of Menstruous Blood which hath an Influx thither till the whole Structure of the Foetus is compleated The Position and Situation of the Infant in the Womb. The Situation or Position of the Infant in the Womb is commonly found to be thus His Knees drawn up to his Belly his Thighs bent backward his Feet hanging down his Hands elevated to his Head whereof one is placed about his Temples or Ears the other upon his Cheeks in which Parts there are white spots discovered in his Skin as Signs of Confrication his Spine or Back-bone bent-round and his Neck being inflected his Head hangs near his Knees the Embryo is situated with that Position of Parts wherewith we commonly apply our selves to rest with his Head uppermost and his Face directed towards his Mothers Spine but a little before his Birth his Head being bent downwards he dives towards the Bottom and Orifice of the Matrix as if he were seeking his way out Lastly The Manner of its Birth The Manner of its Exit or Birth After the Foetus hath acquired its due Conformation Nutrition and Augmentation not finding a sufficient Aliment and wanting Air to Ventilate the abounding Heat begins to seek a larger Space and being irritated distends the Membranes of the Vterus and endeavours to extricate himself out of that Prison wherein he is so confined and incarcerated and hence results a double Motion one