Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	brain_n	year_n	young_a	18	3	5.8553	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55584	Experimental philosophy, in three books containing new experiments microscopical, mercurial, magnetical : with some deductions, and probable hypotheses, raised from them, in avouchment and illustration of the now famous atomical hypothesis / by Henry Power ...	Power, Henry, 1623-1668.	1664 (1664)	Wing P3099; ESTC R19395	93,498	218

all her operations both of Sense and Motion First for sense it is plain by what is discovered in a Vertigo for the Brain it self is not of such a fluid substance as to turn round and make all objects to do so too wherefore t is a sign that the immediate corporeal instrument of conveying the images of things is the Spirits in the Brain Secondly That they are the chief Engine of Sight is plain not onely because the eye is full of these livid Spirits but also because dimness of sight comes from deficiency of them though the parts of the eye otherwayes be entire enough as in sick and old persons and in those troubled with an Amaurosis or Gutta Serena I had the last year a Patient a young Boy of seventeen years old who fell casually stark blind of his right eye in which you could outwardly discover no fault at all the Disease being an Amaurosis or obstruction of the Optick Nerve for that Nerve being by successful means disobstructed and relaxed so that the Animal Spirits were able to flow done to the Retina again he shortly after perfectly recovered his sight again without any relapse at all to this present day Thirdly If you cast a Ligature upon any Nerve you destroy both the sense and motion of that part whither that Nerve was propagated as by that pleasant Experiment by tying the recurrent Nerves in a living Dogg we have tryed till by relaxing the Ligature the Spirits may have the freedome to channel into the Nerves again Which truth is also handsomely made out by that ordinary example of a mans Leg being asleep as we call it for by compression of the Nerves the propagation of the Spirits into the part is hindred for as sense and motion is restored you may feel something creep into the Leg tingling and stinging like Pismires as Spigelius compares it which is the return of the Animal Spirits into that part again Fourthly That Spontaneous motion is performed by continuation of the Animal Spirits from the common Sensorium to the Muscle which is the gross Engine of Motion is sensibly evinced in dead Palsies where one side is taken away To all which add the former Observation of the Spirits circumundulation when the Snail at any time moved and of their joint quiescency together Having now shown you how these Animal Spirits are generated in our Body or to speak more properly disimprisoned and separated from our nutriment and so from fixation brought through Fusion to Volatilization having also shown you what use Nature makes of them in Sensation and Motion let us screw our Enquiry a little further and see if we can discover how the Spirits move in the Brain and Nerves to perform the same operations First therefore we affirm that a lesser quantity and slower motion of the Spirits is required for Sensation than there is for Motion for in this the Muscle swells that moves the part which is a plain Indication of a greater influx of Spirits directed thither a greater I say for I do not deny but there is required to sensation a moderate quantity and diffusion of the Spirits into all the parts of the Body else we should alwayes be benummed and stupid as when our Leg is asleep by an interception of the Spirits Secondly that their motion is slower in sensation then motion the former Experiment of the Snail does also manifest whose Animal Spirits never begin to undulate till she begin to move whereas she is sensible when they are in Quiescency as you may by pricking her with a Needle easily observe Thirdly in the return of the Spirits into the stupefied Leg we plainly perceive by the prickling what a flow motion the Spirits have All which Phaenomena do seem to favour our former Conjecture that for Motion the Spirits move impetuously down the nervous filaments which are hollow but for Sensation they onely creep by a filtration down their Coats and Membranes Now these Spirits being so subtle and dissipable the Soul spends them every day in using of them and they being much spent she can hardly move the Body any longer The sense whereof we call Lassitude For certainly as Doctor More very ingeniously inferrs if it were an immediate faculty of the Soul to contribute Motion to any matter I do not understand that Faculty never failing nor diminishing no more than the Soul it self can fail or diminish that we should ever be weary Thus are the Phaenomena of Sense and Motion best salved whilst we are awake now what happens when we sleep is a matter of further enquiry Some have defined Sleep to be a migration of all the Spirits out of the Brain into the exteriour parts of the Body whereas by our former Observations it may rather seem to the contrary that is The retraction of the Spirits into the Brain or at least a restagnation of them in the nervous parts does till Nature being recruited by a new supply and regeneration of them in the Brain direct them into the Spinal Marrow and Nerves which being replenished with them again they run their current as before so the whole Animal thereby is made capable of feeling the Impulses of any external object whatever which we call Walking and during this Interval and Non-tearm of sensation for so we may without a Complement call Sleep why may not the Soul be retracted and wholly intent upon and busied about her Vegetative and Plastical Operations So that when she has locked up the doors of this Laboratory the Body she may be busie in augmenting repairing and regenerating all the Organs and Utensils within and painting and plaistring the Walls without This I am sure we observe to be the greatest part of her obscure employment in the Womb where the Embryo for the most part sleeps whilst the Soul is in full exercise of her Plastick and Organo-Poïetical Faculty Now these Animal Spirits being continually transmitted from the Brain through the Spinal Marrow Nerves Tendons Fibers into all the parts of the Body especially whilst we are awaking may some of them at least have a kind of circulation for those which perspire not having lost their motion may either mix with the bloud in habitu partium or relapse into a kind of insipid phlegm as Chymical Spirits do that are not purely rectified and to be returned back by the Lymphiducts again Lastly I have but one paradoxical and extravagant Quaere to make and that is this That since we have proved these Animal Spirits to be the ultimate result of all the concoctions of the Body the very top and perfection of all Nature's operations the purest and most aetherial particles of all Bodies in the World whatsoever and so consequently of nearest alliance to Spiritualities and the sole and immediate instrument of all the Soul's operations here even in statu conjuncto the Body and the Organs thereof being but secondary and subservient Instruments to the Spirits These things being thus premised may

of mine having pil'd up many Cart-loads of these Brass-lumps in a Barn of his for some secret purposes of his own the Roof letting rain-water fall copiously in amongst them they all began to smoak and at last to take fire and burnt like red hot Coals so that the Town was in an uproar about quenching of them and one thing further I took special notice of in this unlucky Experiment that the Water which drained from the quenching of them left little pieces and Crystals of Copperase sticking all along to the Piles of Grass that grew in the Croft it run down Thus Antimony and Sublimate being mixed together will grow so hot the one relaxing the fermenting spirit in the other that they are not to be touched Thus in the Corrosion of Mettals by Aqua fortis what a strong heat is there in the Liquor and what a steam constantly evaporates during their fermentation In the Commixtion of Oyl of Vitriol with Oyl of Tartar per deliquium what a violent heat and effervescence do presently arise besides a sharp and acrimonious vapour that strikes our nostrils Nay and we see our Subterraneous Damps do sometimes with intermixtion with the moist Air grow to that over-height of fermentation that they fire of themselves and strike down all before them Thus the Spirit of Niter mixed with Butter of Antimony grows so hot that it is ready to rise in a flame Thus certainly do all Baths receive their heat from Mineral Vapours or the Minerals themselves being in solutis Principiis and so the fermenting Spirit sets a playing in them as the Learned Doctor Jordan did most rationally conjecture This universal fermenting Spirit does not onely play these feats in the Mineral but also operates in the same manner in the Vegetable Kingdome which we ocularly behold in the Artifice of Malt where the Grains of Barly being moistned with water the parts are relaxed the internal Spirits in them are dilated and put into action and the superfluity of water being removed which might choak it and the Barly being layd up in heaps the fermentation and heat presently appears with a kind of vinous steam and effluviums which passe from it and therefore it shoots forth into Spires Thus we see in wet-Hay how the spirits work not onely to a heat but if they be not cooled and prevented by Ventilation they break out into a flame also Nay in all Vegetables there is this constant Heat though it be below our Sensation as it is in some Fishes and colder Animals also and a constant steam and transpiration of particles as we have experimentally proved in our XXV Observation And now let us pursue these Spirits into the Animal Kingdom and we shall see that they have the like effects and operations there also as is formerly observed onely being there in greater plenty and more purely refined and in a constant state of Fusion and Volatility they work nobler effects Now the Spirits that are lodged in all the meats and drinks we receive being more or less fixed therein What does the Soul but like an excellent Chymist in this internal Laboratory of Man by a fermentation of our nourishment in the stomach and guts a filtration thereof through the Lacteae a digestion in the Heart a Circulation and Rectification in the Veins and Arteries what does she I say by these several Physico-Chymical operations but strive all this while to unfix exalt and volatilize the Spirits conteined in our nutriment that so they may be transmitted to the Brain and its divarications and in that reconditory kept and reposited for her use and service So that these we now call Animal Spirits are the purest subtlest and most volatile particles and activest Atoms of the bloud which by continual pulsation of the Heart are carried with the bloud by the carotidal Arteries up into the Brain and there by that lax and boggy substance are imbibed and separated from the bloud and thence by the Spinal Marrow and Nerves transmitted to all the parts of the Body Now as the Chyle is perfected in the stomach and guts and their appendent Vessels the lacteal Veins and as the bloud is perfected in the Heart and it s annexed Vessels the Veins and Arteries so the Animal Spirits are separated preserved and perfected in the Brain with its continued trunk and branches viz. the Spinal Marrow Nerves and Fibers for the uses hereafter to be declared Now the two former Liquors the Chyle and the Bloud because of their grosser liquidity need to be conveyed in hollow Pipes and Channels viz. the Veins and Arteries but the Spirits which is the quintessence of them both can easily pass by a swift filtration through the Brain Spinal Marrow and Nerves Membranes and Fibers which are as it were the Cords Sayls and Tackling to move this Engine or Vessel we call the Body Nay though we can give you no sensible eviction of it Why may not all those long filaments of which the substance of the Brain Spinal Marrow and Nerves consists be tubulous and hollow so that the animal-Animal-Spirits may be channelled through them as the bloud through the Veins and Arteries I am sure we see by Observation xxxi and L. what infinitely small filaments and vessels there are in Animals and yet all tubulous and perforated so that the suddain inflation of all those capillary threads or pipes may serve for Motion of the Body and the constant though flower filtration of the Spirits through their Coats and Cylindrical Membranes may serve for Sensation So that it seems this Cottage of Clay with all its Furniture within it was but made in subserviency to the Animal Spirits for the extraction separation and depuration of which the whole Body and all the Organs and Utensils therein are but instrumentally contrived and preparatorily designed Just as the Chymical Elaboratory with all its Furnaces Crucibles Stills Retorts Cucurbits Matrats Bolt-heads Pelicans c. were made for no other end by the ingenious Chymist than for the extraction and depuration of his Spirits and Quintessences which he draws from those Bodies he deals with in the obtainment of which he hath come to the ultimate design of his indeavours Now as in Minerals and Vegetables the colluctancy of these fermenting Spirits with the grosser matter does both create a constant heat and evaporation of Atoms So in Animals the like is more eminently conspicuous to wit the vital heat or calidum innatum and those fuliginous effluviums which pass constantly out of us by insensible transpiration which Sanctorius hath proved to exceed the bulk and weight of all our sensible Evacuations whatsoever Having thus demonstrated how the Soul obtains these Spirits after her several operations of Digestion Chylification Sanguification Circulation c. the like now let us see what use she makes of so pretious a substance First therefore we affirm that this thin and spirituous matter which is called the Animal Spirits is the immediate Instrument of the Soul in