steps of Kinde and her most strange and unwonted changes but also set and venture upon the like by Skill yea and to pass further if any Reason will carry them and so at length they come I know not how nor whether by guess or knowledge to this Rule and certain Ground that it was possible for any Man put out by forcible and violent Death by natural means to Rise and quicken again and so to be renewed and as it were by a new Birth restored But what be their new and marvellous means which way is this incredible course performed After they saw not onely some parts of other Wights as the Tails of Lizards the Eyes of Snakes and Swallows but also the whole Bodies of cold and bloodless ones clean rased and destroyed naturally to spring afresh and to be restored As a Snake cut in pieces and rotted in Dung to quicken and every piece to prove a whole Snake again and such like they began to reach by device and practise at some further matters and to slay some hot and bloody Wights that spring not out of nothing but are bred by force of Seed and conjunction of Male and Female and by the like kindly corruption to raise them up again and renew them as a Bird burnt alive in a close Glass and so rotted and then inclosed in a shell to hatch it under a Hen and restore the same And other such strange proofs they ceased not to make until at last they durst be bold to think that any Wight even a Man and all might by the same course wax young and be born again still and live for ever This is the second way of waxing Young again and as great an Extreme as that other and as far from my meaning Though there be divers Reports and Stories flown abroad of Men that took the same race in themselves and others and found both good and bad success according as a Man that favours it will think as the Work was tended by them which were put in trust Medea sped well say they in proof upon Jasons father and made him Young again as Tully saith recoquendo But HERMES and the Poet Virgil and that Spanish Earl failed upon themselves as some hold but as others hold they had good luck and came to their purpose What should a Man say to this matter Albeit I do not chuse this kinde of Renewing yet I will not condemn it without cause and judge it for kinde impossible for I see no Reason but that the Story of the Snake may be full easily true because it is bred by it self and of more unfit Stuff in the same manner And for the rest all is one to Nature if the Stuff and Place be meet and currant having that her general Seed of begetting which I said was all one in all things in her bosom ever ready and thereby making yet as we heard before all seeded Plants without seed somewhere yea and perfect Wights both Water and Land ones And at first when the Stuff and Womb and her own Heat and all served very fitly having wrought Man and all so But now why is Seed given unto things Because Nature for want of the former helps as they could not last for ever is not able in all places to work the raw stuff of the beginnings so far to such perfection unless she finde both the stuff well drest and half made to her hand and an hot Womb like an artificial Fornace to help and set her forward Well then for this our matter and manner of restoring Man let us call it to the account of Reason and consider what is that Seed that makes Man and the place where he is made What is all the work Is it any thing else but a part of Man except his Minde rotted in a continual even gentle moist and wightly Heat Is it not like that the whole Body rotted in like manner and in a Womb agreeable shall swim out at last quicken and arise the same thing I cannot tell I will neither avow nor disavow the matter Nature is deep and wonderful in her Deeds if they be searched and unwound to the bottom I cannot tell I say Nature may suffer this but not Religion And yet it is a dangerous trial as our Men and the Poet found it by some Mens sayings They might more safely have made a proof upon a piece of themselves which we call Seed ordered by that skilful kinde of Recoction which hath been found true as some Report and I think it certain or perhaps more kindly and throughly but sure more civilly and religiously in the due place appointed for this is also a kinde of renewing of himself and waxing Young again when his Childe is as Aristotle saith well another Himself onely severed and set apart from himself But neither is this third kinde enough for us we must have the whole and unparted Man restored Then the fourth Kinde is it I mean which is indeed a Mean between all the rest especially between that empty Word and dangerous Deed aforesaid performing more than the one in the outside and less within than the other for this way doth not onely by a better race of refreshing it with Heat and Moisture renew the Skin but the Hair Nails and Teeth also though these by the same way of putting off the old ones But for the inward chief and needful parts hewn out of the Seed at first by the Natural Workman it shall neither make nor marre any onely change and alter purge and place them all in their former State and Soundness Youth and Lustiness Then let us see how we may be renewed and wax Young again in that order beginning first with those idle and needless things I cannot call them Parts of the Body which after we were made up and finished grew and sprung out from the Leavings of our Meat and Nourishment the Teeth Nails and Hair As for the Skin it is a part of the Seed or the Crust that overcast the thing when it was fully baked Then as these keep no certain course and order of Kinde in coming for to omit Hair that comes and goes upon every light Occasion some are born without Nails some with Teeth when others again have none before they wax old and such like disorders so no doubt by Skill they may come and go again without any hurt or great change to the Body Pliny tells of one whose Teeth came again after he was an hundred years old and upwards and I know not well whether the Souldiers in Germanicus his Host that by drinking of a Spring by the River Rhyne had their Teeth shaken out and loose had them come again or no But this is certain that there be Waters in the World which by a special quality make those Beasts that drink thereof cast their Hair Horns and Hoofs and so renew them What need many more words This part is
worthy Master Plato If that were the best Life or the Life of GOD why did GOD make the World He lived so before if that had been the best Life But because He was Good He would have other enjoy his Goodness and therefore he was busie in Making and is yet in Ruling the World And yet indeed it is no Business as we reckon it that is no Care and Trouble but an outward Deed and Action clean contrary to the inward Deed of a musing Minde onely shooting at his own good Estate which is Wisdome and Knowledge But if he deny all this as it is like he will because to encrease the heap of sin he grants no Beginning then what can be greater evidence than his own Writings one quite thwarting another as cross as may be for in his seventh Book of State he comes again and saith that Every man hath so much BLISSE as he hath Wisdome and Virtue even by the witness of GOD himself who is therefore happy and not for outward Goods What can be more divinely spoken and more cross to that former foul and godless Opinion Nay see the force of Truth he yields again according to his heavenly Master That to forestall the Place from the worser sort good Men ought to take Office upon them and to manage Affairs of State Yea and further If they refuse which if they be Wise they will quoth Zeno that they may be rightly compelled Then if his Wiseman hath Virtue in possession as no doubt he hath he must as we see by his own confession use it And the same reason is of GOD Himself in this great City of the World But Plato by name thinks these two so nearly tied and of kin together as he dare openly deny his Happiness to that Common-wealth where they be dis-linked and stand asunder Then we see that in the judgement of these two great Philosophers where they be best advised and in deed and truth the Divine Pattern of BLISSE which we ought to strive unto is no more nor no less than that worthy couple of Wisdome and Virtue knit together in that band of Fellowship which may never be parted and set asunder But you may say We have reared our BLISSE aloft and made it a fair and goodly Work but more fit for the dwelling of those single and clean Mindes or Spirits above which they call Messengers or Angels than for us Men so buried here below in these earthly Bodies as we be scarce able to look up unto it And therefore Aristotle both in his Book of Manners and of State with good advice often receiveth in enough of bodily and outward Goods to help this matter though not as any other cause of BLISSE than the Instrument is of Musick and so Plato we see nameth his Servants and Helpers Indeed I grant that this full and high pitch of Happiness I mean that measure above set is free and easie to free and lively Spirits but to us impossible without other outward means and helps which nevertheless shall not be counted as any part of the frame of BLISSE needful to make up the whole but as it were loose and hang-by steps and stairs leading up unto it Then if these be so needful as they be it were as much need to lay them down and in just account which those Philosophers do not lest if there be too few our Happiness should halt if again too many the idle parts might in time infect and marre the rest As we may fear of Plato his first three Delights although they be not hurtful of themselves Without more words the just sum is this To obtain so much Happiness as our Nature is able to take and hold the Body had need be first willing and obedient and then store of outward needful things to be at hand and ready These every Man knoweth But for the Body that is obedient when it is long-liv'd healthful young clear and temperate when all these helps flock together we may be happy if we will if any want we shall never do what we can as we shall hear hereafter Then let us marshal at last these things in Order and comparing BLISSE to a Family make that loving Couple Wisdome and Virtue as Man and Wife and Heads of the Houshold the five Properties of the Body like Children and Riches as Servants These again if the chief of the Houshold will suffer them to Marry will beget other two Bond-children to beautifie the same house Honour and Pleasure But the wise and good Housholder will in no wise suffer it lest his Houshold be troubled with more than may be ruled And although true and right Honour and Pleasure will perforce follow yet he shall not regard them but be minded towards them as those grave Men were towards Hellen and often use their saying Although they be such kinde ones yet let them go CHAP. II. Reproof of the common and lighter sort of Arguments cast against the Way to Bliss NOw that we know what is BLISSE and HAPPINESSE we may when we will go into the Way and shew how all Men may be Blessed wherein I am quite bereaved of an helps from the Grecians as men ever apter to speak and think well than to do and perform any thing though constancy and agreement in their Sayings would have left BLISSE as well as other good things in the power and reach of all Men And I must fly for aid into Aegypt a People so far passing all other Nations as it is better and nearer to GOD to work and do great wondrous things than to behold and look upon them For it is delivered to ancient and true Record that one HERMES a King and Law-giver of that Country a Man of rare and divine gifts in Knowledge above all that ever were found out a Medicine able to bring all men to that BLISSE aforesaid and left it behinde him in writing to his People and that it was after him a long time by the wiser sort closely wrought and used until at last it crept abroad and stole into Arabia when she flourished in Arms and Learning and there got the Name which it now commonly keepeth of the PHILOSOPHERS STONE And that from thence in the same secret and disguised manner for it is the wont thereof as becomes so deep a Secret it hath travelled and spred it self over all Nations now and then opening and discovering it self to a few of the better and wiser Company Then this is THE WAY TO BLISSE which I mean to take And withall to prove it no pleasant Dream and happy Tale if it were true as the common Proverb goeth of it but as it is in Nature an heroical and almost divine deed scarce to be reached or matched with any words so I vow it a true and certain Story a thing often done and again to be done as often I am unfit I grant and unable to bear so great a
things differing according to the Strength of the one and the Obedience of the other And so by reason in that separation of the fine and Male part at first the stuff was throughly tost and mingled and the Heat of Heaven thereby like a hot Summer after a wet Spring very fierce and eager the two causes serving very fitly all Wights Man and all were made alike without any seed sown otherwise than by the great Seedsman of Heaven upon the common stuff of Earth and Water As is still seen in the common Tillage yet used in those lame and unperfect Wights which some call Start-ups and sprung out from themselves As we may be easily led to think if we consider how not onely all kinde of Plants without all setting or sowing grow up by themselves in some places and some kinde of Fish in the Sea are onely Female but also what plenty of Fish there abounds in the frozen Countries for the great heat and fatness of the Waters and chiefly that upon the slimy and hot Land of Aegypt there are yet some bloody and perfect Land-wights as Hares and Goates c. so made and fashioned But because afterward the well-mingled and fat fine Stuff and the strong working Heat failed as it must needs in time and yet the great Lord would have the continual flitting change and succession hold The same two fit Causes were duly kept by continual succession within the Bodies of perfect Wights the Stuff in the She and the Heat in Both yea and as far as need required in seeded Plants also Now we must understand as well that this heavenly Soul which when it is so clothed with that windy Body is called Spirit not onely moveth and worketh with his Heat but also for Food wasteth the Stuff for nothing that is made is able to bear up his state and being without his proper and like food and sustenance Then as our gross Fire here below feedeth upon Weather and Wind called Air as upon his likest meat And as it in his due place is too thin and scattered spreading the Fire so far as it followeth his Food until at last it vanisheth to nothing unless it be plentifully heaped and crowded up together and so kept in a narrow shell of Water which is called Oil or Fatness Even so it is between the fine starry Fire and his like Food the fine Fat of Aether for that cause besides the Divine Purpose above set it cometh down in post into these Quarters to finde and dress himself store of meat as appeareth by his tarrying for as soon as his Food is spent he flieth away as fast and leaves his House at six or sevens uncared for I was about to tell you the Cause of the divers sorts and suits of these lower Creatures but that there was a great puff of Matter came between and swept me away which now being passed over I will go forward Then if the suffering Stuff be Gross Foul and Tough and the making Heat very Small and Easie as it is within and under the Ground things are made which they call Mettals or better by the Arabick word Minerals little broken altered or changed but the gross Beginnings Earth and Water Earth especially rule still and the Life and Soul as it were in a dark dungeon fast shut up and chained is not able to stir and shew it self at all When the Stuff is Finer and Softer with greater Heat upon it there will arise a rooted and growing thing called a Plant better mingled and smaller and further broken from the low and foul Beginnings and the Life of Heaven shall have more scope because Wind or Air and Water and yet Water chiefly swayeth the Matter But if the Soul be yet more mighty and the Stuff yet finer he is able Air and Fire but that above this exalted to shew himself a quicker Workman and to make yet a finer piece of Work moving forward and by mighty sense perceiving But by reason these two Causes passing by those degrees do so mount and rise at last there is an excellent and fiery kinde contrived even Our kinde I mean most throughly and fair and finely wrought even so Fat indeed that he may not easily seem made at all of these All-making Seeds the four Beginnings whence it is that when a Corps is consumed with Fire there are found scarce six Ounces of clean Earth remaining which fineness of Body gives occasion to the greatest freedom and quickness of the Soul and ability to perform as his duty of Life Moving and Perceiving yea and shall I put in Understanding also for albeit GOD hath inbreathed us with another more fine and clean Mover called Minde for a special and Divine purpose yet that Minde as well as the Soul above is all one of it self in all places and worketh diversly according to those divers places as we shall see more at large hereafter Then you see all the differences of the four great Heads or Kindes which contain all things yea and of many lesser degrees and steps lying within every one of these which I named not before as also of sundry sorts not worth the naming of Doubtful and Middle things touching and partaking on each side of the four great ones as between the first two Stones budding like Herbs in the Scottish Sea between Plants and Beasts the Spunge Apes or rather hairy Wildmen between Beasts and Us to proceed from the divers mixtures of the Bodies If you cannot quickly perceive the Matter behold at once the outward Shapes and Fashions as they here go down a short pair of Stairs before you Do you not see Man alone through his exceeding fine and light Body carried up and mounted with a mighty heat of Heaven of an upright stature and carriage of himself that this Divine Wit might be free from the clog of Flesh when other Wights from the contrary Cause which the gross and earthly Leavings or Excrements of Hair Horn Hoof and such like declare are quite otherwise disposed as we see towards the Ground their like Companion and so the less hot and fine they be that is the liker the Earth the nearer they bend unto her being less of stature still and after that many-footed to support them but at length Footless and groveling until it come to their Heads downward and there it stayeth not but passeth quite over and degenerates from Wights to Plants And from thence if I might tarry about it I would send them down still through all the steps of them and Minerals until they came to the main Rest and Stay from whence they all sprang clean Earth and Water But I think it be now high time to take my leave of these Philosophers and to set forward as soon as I have packt up my Stuff round together especially the best and most precious Things Then we gather by that enlarged Speech
be found even any gentle continual equal and moist that is any rotting Heat But the Seed seemeth hard and unable to be matched because a kinde of strange and hid proportion and temper of our Body which no Man by conceit and knowledge much less by hand and workmanship can reach and counterfeit no not if he boiled all the Mixtures in all the Heats that all the Wits in the World could devise made it thus after his own fashion Then how if we take the same frame and temper not by us but by Kinde proportioned I mean the same Blood Flesh and Seed if we will which the Man of Germany chooseth and commendeth above all and calls it Mummia would it not be very natural for if the Leaches hold it good if any part about us fail in his duty to correct and help him with the like part of some Beast passing in that property as to mend fainting Lust with the Yard of a Lusty Beast the Womb that cannot hold with the Womb of a quick Conceiver Narrow breathing with the Lungs of a long-winded Wight and so forth then consider with how much more kindly consent we might with our own parts finely dressed help our selves in our Diseases But for my part I cannot unwinde the bottom of this great Secret of Germany for we mean not to make a Man which is to be feared in that course if his Rule be true but a first Moisture onely and then sith all things are made of the same Stuff by the same Workman and differ but by Mingling onely it boots not where we begin and upon what Stuff in stead of that Seed if we give him the same Mingling and form at the last which Art is able in time to do because that which Kind is forced to do at once she may do often and so reach the end of Nature What need I say more Is not the Matter clear enough that another fast fine Oyl and first Moisture may be made in all points like to our own and able to maintain or repair it and the natural Heat together and then that by the same though other easie means would serve because it is so temperate the Body may be brought and held in square and temper And so by reason all the Causes meet and flock together that Life may be preserved I dare not say for Ever for fear of the stroke of Destiny which GOD hath made and will have kept but unto that Term and those Bounds above-set and beyond them also if any Man have ever gone beyond them But if it should chance any of our chosen Children to use the phrase of our Family to be unable yet for all this teaching to take and digest this Food of Learning what is to be done shall we cast them off for untoward Changelings as the foolish Women think or else for Bears and Apes as Galen did the Germans No that were Inhumanity Let us rather nourish them still easily and gently hoping that they will one day prove Men and give it out unto them That all the most Wise and Cunning Men in the World I mean all the Hosts of Hermetists have from Age to Age ever held but under Vails and Shadows somewhat covertly and taught for certain that such a first fine Oyl whereof I spake and which they call a Fifth Nature Heaven or by a more fit name Aether is able alone to hold together the brittle state of Man very long above the wonted race both in Life Health and Lustiness Nay for fear there be yet some suspicion left in their Authorities I will go further As many of the other side of Greece as had travelled in these Matters and seen something though not with Eyes but in Minde I think confess the same as besides them which perhaps I know not Fernelius in part and altogether Ficinus and Cardan two as wily and learned Men as any time hath of late brought forth do openly declare in their Writings But if this soft and easie kinde of delivery will not yet serve the turn and they must feed their Eye as well as their Belly as the Proverb goes then let them tell me by what diligence did Plato so order Himself and school his Body to use his own words as he could be able to cause Nature to end his dayes at his pleasure And by Departing upon the same day Eighty one years after his Birth to fulfill of purpose Nine times Ninè the most perfect Number Might he not have had some such Medicine Nay is it not like he had when he was in Aegypt among the Priests and Wise-men and brought home Learning from them and when he speaks so much and often in disgrace of his own Country Physick though Hippocrates himself then reigned But it is for certain written in divers of our Records that many of those wise Aegyptians the Springs of this Water of Life have before and since Plato by the self-same Water kept themselves twice as long as Plato if I might bring in their Witness or if this whole proof which I like full ill were not counted by the Art of proof unskilful Then let this one Example told by Cardan a Man allowed among them serve for all That one Gallus of late Charles the Fifth his Physician by this Heaven of ours beset with Stars as some do term it that is increased with the Spirits of Herbs by an easie feat put into her preserved himself in lusty sort until a hundred and twenty four Years Neither think that Mixture better than our single Oyl though Lully Rupescisse Paracelsus and some others allow it so but rather worse in Reason for too much Heat in a weak and loose Body worse I mean for Long Life by his over-greediness in eating up too fast his own and our first Moisture It may be better because it is stronger against Diseases even as the Leaches judge between a Dunghill and a Garden Herb for the same cause But I think the devise not good in either nor agreeable to the Justice of Nature which more evenly weigheth her Works nor yet to the kindly skill of HERMES who to the great heat of his Medicine hath a most fast tough and lasting Stuff according as we shall shew in that which followeth Now it is time to rest we have made the first a long dayes Journey CHAP. II. Of HEALTH AFter a Man hath ended his desire to Live he begins to wish for Health without which no Life is sweet and savoury Then let us bend our Selves that way next and endevour to shew the Means besides the Way of HERMES how every Man may get and keep his Health that is as I partly told you before the consent and equal I mean agreeable to Kinde temper and dulling of the four first Beginnings the Stuff of our Bodies for if this Knot be broken and they let loose towards their former liberty they wax proud and strong and fight
in a kinde of Learning to unlearn all as it were and begin again for their own Credit and Virtue yea and Profits sake also if they esteem the best to leave those gilded Pills and sugred Baits and all other crafty Snares wherewith the World hath been so long caught and tormented and to seek this one heavenly plain and to you that be Learned easie ready true and certain way of healing Diseases I think before-times they were not greatly to be blamed and accused but of dulness and weakness in Understanding in not espying and seeing this Perfection and supplying of all their Wants But now since of late they have been so often warned not with Words onely but with Examples of Learned Men Matheolus Gorraeus Fernelius Severinus Danus and other such like which have and do revolt and fly away from them daily yea and by the certain and sufficient both written and living Witness of the Deeds of Paracelsus it were Impiety to stand still Well few words will serve to Wise and Virtuous Physicians such as are of themselves forward But there is another and I am afraid the greater sort less honest more idle and covetous full of windy Pride and Words but empty of all good Learning with whom gentle warning no though the Truth her self should come in person would prevail nothing who care not it seems to behold half Mankinde to perish for want of help and succour rather than they would either blot their Credit increase their Pains or lose their Gains and which not onely speak foully and write foolishly against this over-flourishing Virtue but also like the giddy People where they catch the State banish the Men that hold and possess it Whereas if it were a good Common-wealth saith Aristotle the matter would be so far from Banishment as they would deem such a Man as well as the Laws for he is himself a Law exempt from all Obedience and judge him worthy to be followed and obeyed as a perpetual King This untowardness and crookedness in Men caused all our All-healing Ancestors from time to time never to abide their Sentence but to the great hurt and loss of Mankinde to go into willing Banishment You have established a kinde of Government among you to pursue the same Like a little wherein you rule alone over the weak and sorry Subjects of Mens Bodies Then their Health and Safety you ought to seek onely besides enough to maintain contented estate which Plato allows his Governours and not profit onely that were Tyranny both for Humanity and Religion sake for to omit Religion which they do lightly omit if a Leach begin once to make a prey of Men he is not onely no Man but a most fierce and cruel Beast not so fit to be compared and matched any where if you seek all over as with that mis-shapen Monster of India which Aristotle describes and calls Mantichora which being by Kinde or Custom I know not whether very greedy upon Mans flesh is with manifold and wonderful helps furnished and armed unto it first with a Face like a Man and Voice like a Trumpet two fit things to allure and toll him in and then if he fly with the swiftness of a Hart to overtake him and darts like a Porcupine to wound him afar off and with the Tail of a Scorpion as it were a poisoned shaft near hand to sting him furthermore lest all this might not serve by reason of Armours he hath Feet like a Lion fiercely and stoutly to tear him and three rows of Teeth on each Chap for speed in devouring Apply You and your Apothecaries the rest of your selves in secret for my part as I am sorry to see evil done so am I as loth to speak evil of it and sure were not the great grief and Envy I do bear and always did to see desert trodden down by such unworthiness and some little hope besides to hear of your amendment and so of the return of the Truth and her honours out of banishment you should have found me as I have been long and mean to be longer quite dumb and Tongueless both in this and all other Matters Do not think I speak of Spight or for hope of gain or for any such matter There is no cause God knows I am no Physician never was nor ever mean to be what I am it makes no matter Let us go forward CHAP. III. Of YOUTH ALbeit we live Long and in Health yet if our Bodies be weak and unwieldy as it is in Age it must needs lett and clog us much in this happy Race Wherefore the third help and step to BLISSE that is Youth was not idle nor out of Order Then what is Youth They know best that have lost it It is the most active fruitful and beautiful state of the Body These be the Marks and Differences whereby we may know it from all things else I mean Activity not in deeds of Moving onely but of Life and Sense also This is it which makes up the Nature of Youth The other two Marks are taken in not as needful helps either to Youth or BLISSE and such as may not be spared especially Beauty but because they be very notable Marks as I said to know Youth by and that as we heard of true Honour and Pleasure above so these will also perforce hang on and follow though they be unlooked for and unregarded Then this is the matter under-hand in this place This we must prove possibly to be kept and preserved unto our lives end yea and although it were lost before that it may be gotten again and restored And yet first as our Natural Heat is the cause of our Being so the cause of our best Estate and Youth is the flower and best estate of it that is his chief strength and quickness Then keep or recover this and all is done But we had need be sure of this that the flower of Heat makes us Young and flourishing and sure by proof and experience the best assurance in the World Let us look all over and we shall finde it so To begin with Plants although their life is dark and they be but lame and unperfect Wights for Plato gives them sense yet their flourishing and decay their Youth and Age as I may term them do clearly follow the quickness or dulness of their in bred heat caused by the two Seasons of Summer and Winter as appears in India where for the continual heat and moisture and Summer of the Country no Plant feels Age or fall of the Leaf that word is idle in those parts save Fen-greek because by a strange property besides the rest it hath strange cooling above the rest standing in Water first and then somewhat deeply from the Sun Nay amongst us we see those Plants which are Hot and Dry sound and hardy able to withstand the force of Cold to keep their leaves in Winter Moreover keep off that starving Cold
of kind do plainly draw unto them much of their unkindly qualities as appears by the Foles in Africa which by sucking Camels are made more painful then their kind swift and healthful for it and enough such like examples might be brought if time would suffer To come to our Bodies left us by our Parents If we see Manners ingrafted and in-bred in Stocks and kindreds and Children and Nephews still down to take one after another a long time by Kind and Nature as that cursed father-beating kindred set down in Aristotle and other pilfering Stocks which though they have no need yet must needs steal to let pass Lechery Valour and other good and bad qualities which we see daily descend and reign in Kindreds whence are these Not from the Parents Mindes which off-spring not nor can be left nor engraffed but must return straight and whole and all at once when they flit out of this Life to that Heavenly place from whence they came Neither are all their Wits alike framed by use and custome but brought up sometimes quite contrary Therefore to cut off the Astronomers opinions as a string too much discording those Manners spring out of the Parents seed which is a part of their Bodies I mean of their second Bodies purchased by Meat and Nourishment which Bodies if they use good and temperate Diet are ever like the first otherwise they follow the Nature of the Meats and of their distempers as Cardane in a few of the worst Diets hath most notably marked that drunken or over-studious or too great fasting or large Onion-eating Parents do beget and bring forth for the most part mad and frantick Children To close up all this First Part with this one little proof at once If we find our selves do many things against our Wills as when a fearful thing is offered our Hearts will pant and fail with fear when a fair Lust and his part will arise whether we will or no and all incontinency springs from that Root then sure the Body must lay this force upon us But how is this And which way doth the Body so violently over-rule and carry away the Will and Mind after her when any shape appears in the thought of Man the doing Mind takes it straight we must weare these words with use and make them softer and laying it with good or bad and matching and comparing all things decrees and determines and then her Will and Reason which Plato placeth in the Head follows and desires But at the same time steps in another double Will and appetite sent from that unreasonable and perceiving Soul which is common between us and Beasts sitting one part in the Heart and desiring outward goods the other in the Liver and seeking the goods of the Body And look which of these is stronger that is which hath the stronger house either by descent or purchase or else the baser would be still the weaker and obey the better that prevailes and moves the Spirits unto it and those the Sinews and those again by other middle means the whole Body or part thereof as is the pleasure of the Commander Wherefore to come to the point more plainly we shall never be good and follow Virtue that is a mean and reason in our desires and doings before these two parts the Heart and the Liver be first by Kind and then by Diet in order square and temper apt to obey the Laws and Rules of Reason for to begin with the Root If the Heart be very Hot and Moist the Man is Couragious and Liberal desiring Honour and great outward things if Hot and Drie Cruel Angry Deceitful c. But if it keep a Mean and be Temperate in Quality it keepeth a Mean and obeyeth Reason in that kind of Manners for the Liver if it be Hot and Moist likewise it followeth Venery and Gluttony if Hot and Drie it doth the same but crookedly and out of course but if it be Cold and Drie the Man on the other side is very Chast and Abstinent and if Cold and Moist somewhat Chast and Abstinent but untowardly whereas a Temperate Liver holds a Mean in both and following the Race of Kind desires to live Soberly in Company and Honestly in Marriage a Life as far from Monks and Eremites as Gluttons and Lechers Wherefore we see that all Manners proceed from the Temper of those parts nay perhaps Understanding also if it varieth still according to the divers Heats and Moistures of the Brain and if these two parts be the Springs of all Heat and Moisture in the Body so that all good Manners and all Virtue bud forth from the good middle and equal mixture and temper of the same parts And all our labour and travel if we seek Virtue must be to bring those twain into square and temper that is equality as neer as may be of the four qualities not onely by the Philosophical Salve of Use and Custom though Plato hits it right in his Timaeus when he will have no Man lewd by his Will and therefore not to be blamed but through his Body by Use or Nature ill-disposed but rather by good Diet and by right Physick especially And thus we have at last finished these Parts wherein we meant to prepare the Mindes both of the Common and Learned People and to make the way to the Truth of HERMES MEDICINE THE THIRD BOOK CHAP. 1. Of mending and bettering the State of MANS BODY ALbeit we have shewen heretofore divers wayes to BLISSE and HAPPINESSE and sundry means whereby the whole Kind of Men may come to Long-Life Health Youth Richâ—â— Wisdom and Virtue yet in truth they are all by long and cumbersom wayes fit rather to put them in mind of a better way which was the drift of that purpose than to be gone and travelled by the lovers of Wisdom and Virtue Wherefore I would not wish them to arrive their counsels in any of those places but to seek to the Haven of HERMES and of his sons the wise Philosophers as to the onely one ready and easie way to all BLISSE and HAPPINESS Then we are come at last to that which was the first intent and meaning of all this labour that HERMES and the PHILOSOPHERS STONE and MEDICINE is the true and ready way to BLISSE But how shall we prove this unless we unlock the door of Secrets and let in Light to these matters which have been ever most closely kept and hid in darkness We must I say first open what is HERMES MEDICINE except we would put on a Vizard and make a long buzze and empty sound of words about that which no man understands We are like now to be driven unto a marvellous strait either to flie the field or to venture upon the curse and displeasure of many wise and godly Men yea and of GOD HIMSELF as we heard in the begining If Plato thought he had cause when he took in hand