Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	draw_v	iron_n	loadstone_n	1,525	5	13.0457	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57675	The philosophicall touch-stone, or, Observations upon Sir Kenelm Digbie's Discourses of the nature of bodies and of the reasonable soule in which his erroneous paradoxes are refuted, the truth, and Aristotelian philosophy vindicated, the immortality of mans soule briefly, but sufficiently proved, and the weak fortifications of a late Amsterdam ingeneer, patronizing the soules mortality, briefly slighted / by Alexander Ross.	Ross, Alexander, 1591-1654.	1645 (1645)	Wing R1979; ESTC R200130	90,162	146

which we live and to avoid scandall to submit our thoughts and actions to Gods Word and not to practise such things as have no cause or reason in nature as to cure diseases by spells or words characters and knots which being artificiall and quantities cannot naturally operate The weapon-salve must be conserved in an equall temper Sect. 38. Pag. 164 c. 18. and the weapon which made the wound must be orderly dressed Paracelsus the inventor of this salve is ill reported of to wit to be a Magician Baptista Porta Goclenius D r. Floid some others have bin too credulous to beleeve him for if it be not magicall it is suspicious considering the author the superstitious ceremonies in gathering of the mosse from the dead skull with the other simples used in it besides the unreasonablenesse of their opinions who think that a wound can be cured by such a way whereas nihil agit in distans naturall agents work not but within a proportionable distance as the fire will not heat if the object be not within its reach neither will the load-stone draw except the iron be neer But the patrons of this salve will have it cure the wound though many miles distant and though there be an interposition of many dense bodies as of houses and hills What medium can carry this vertue so far thorow so many impediments whereas the Sun cannot conveigh his beames to us if the Moon or a thick cloud be interposed And what sympathy can wee conceive to be between a sword or a clout and a wound except you 'l say It is because the bloud touched it or as you say Because the steem or spirits entered into the pores of the weapon These are piercing spirits indeed that can passe thorow steele and stay there so long after the bloud is cold whereas the bloud which in phlebotomy is received into a dish loseth the spirits as soon as the bloud is cold though many ounces of bloud be there yet never a spirit left nor any sympathy at all between the dish and the wound Sure by this reason when the sword that wounds is kept in the same roome with the wounded man it must cure whereas it cures so farre off But no such cure is to be found for I was yet never cured by the knife that cut my finger though never so often dressed If any reply that some cures have been done by this salve I answer that I have heard so and they that write of it most of them write but upon report and suppose some cures had been done yet I will not impute them to the salve but to the washing and keeping of the wound cleane in which case nature will help it selfe The imagination also is sometimes a help to cure and sometime Sathan may concurre for his owne ends videlicet to confirme superstition and errour If any say that there is a sympathy between the pole and the needle touched with the load-stone which are farther distant then the sword and the wound I grant it because the influence of celestiall bodies upon earthy is not hindred by distance but we cannot say so of the actions of sublunary bodies whose matter is farre different from that of the heavens In a word the effects of this salve which you speak of are much like the effects that are said to be caused by images of wax made by Witches The like credit is to be given to those other reports you speake of to wit the curing of the kines swelled soles by a turffe cut from under their sore feet and hung upon an hedge the drying of which is the mending of the sore feet And the running over of the Cowes milk in boiling into the fire wil cause an inflammation in the Cowes udder and that this is cured by casting salt into the fi●e upon the milk I could tell you many such tales as those which I have partly read and partly heard but credat Iudaus Apella I will stick to that Philosophicall principle Ominis actio 〈◊〉 per 〈◊〉 but here is no contact and I will as soon credit Apuleius his Metamorphosis into an Asse by the anointing of his body as the curing of a wound by an ointment which is not at all applyed to the bodie If any will say that such cures are done by the influence of the Stars let him prove it wee may so salve all questions and not trouble our selves to search any further into the hidden causes of things These influences are the sanctuary of ignorance but Stars are universall agents whose operations are fruitlesse if they be not determined by the particular agents Lastly I like your supposition wel If the steem of bloud and spirits carry with it the balsamick qualities of the powder into the wound it will better it In this I am of your opinion for if Daedalus did flie in the aire wings doubtlesse would help him but there is great odds between the sents which the Deere or Hare or Fox leave behind them and this imaginary vertue of the weapon-salve this being altogether hid these other being manifest qualities quickly apprehended by the sagacious hounds You say that the heat of the torrid Zone drawes aire to Sect. 39. Pag. 176. c. 20. it from the Poles and rest of the world otherwise all would be turned into fire The aire about the Poles you confesse is very cold and the aire under the Line very hot Now that heat should draw cold to it is to contradict a sensible maxime for what is more plaine and sensible then that one contrary drives out another and like drawes its like The heat of the fire drawes out the heat of a burned finger or the heat of the stomack whereas the cold aire repells it Hence it is that we concoct better in Winter then in Summer The heat of the upper and lower region of the aire doth not draw to it the cold of the middle region but the cold fortifies and unites it selfe against its enemy Secondly the aire under the Line is carried about so fast by the motion of the primum mobile from East to West that there is a continuall trade-wind and a strong tide to the West So that the aire there will not give leave by reason of its swift motion for any other aire to come thither Thirdly the torrid Zone needs no refrigeration from the Poles for there are great lakes rivers and seas besides constant gales of wind which refresh the aire and make it no lesse temperate then Spain if you will beleeve Hist. Ameris Acosta Not to speak of the equalitie of the night there with the day so that the Sun is not so long above their Horison as hee is above ours in Summer And if there were such extreme heat there as is supposed there would not be such multitudes of all sorts of herbs fruits and trees green all the yeare as Lerius witnesseth in his In Brasil navigation You have found out

a pretty way for generation of Sect. 40. the load-stone which you say is begot of atomes drawne Cap. 21. from the North Pole by the heat of the torrid Zone and so sent downe into the bowels of the earth where meeting with some condensate stuffe becomes this stone This is the summe of your large discourse But first wee would know what these atomes are whether parts of that cold aire or of the light Secondly how the heat of the torrid Zone can draw cold atomes such a great way ninety degrees at least whereas wee have shewed that hot aire expelleth the cold but draweth it not Thirdly how it comes that load-stones are found in Macedonia Spaine Bohemia Germany and other Northern places Did the atomes in their Southern progresse stay there being weary of so long a journie and plant colonies neer home Or were they sent back by the heat which brought them thence Fourthly how can such weak bodies pierce so deep into the earth Fifthly when these atomes cast their spawne into the matrix of our great Mother whether she doth feed upon iron when shee 's breeding seeing the stone when it 's come to maturitie loveth iron so well Or did shee not surfeit upon garlick which is such an enemy to the load-stone Sixthly of what atomes is the stone Theamedes made that so much hates the iron which the load-stone loves and the Adamant that hinders its operation Though I honour your worth and ingenuitie in aiming at such abstruse causes yet both you and I and all men must confesse that our science here is but ignorance and wee see the natures of things as that blind man who saw men walk like trees Who can tell why Rhubarb purgeth choler Agarick phlegme How the Torpedo stupefieth the hand thorow the cane and the Remora stayes the ship Virgil. Has nè possimus naturae accedere partes Frigidus en obstat circum praecordia sanguis The load-stone you say workes by bodies Ergo not by Sect. 41. Pag. 18. 5. c. 21. quabities I deny the consequence for bodies doe not work upon bodies but by their qualities take these away and there will be no action in nature for actions have their originall from qualities and their properties too therefore actions are susceptible of contrarieties of intension and remission because the qualities from which they have their being are capable of these And as among substances only the forme so among accidents only the qualitie is operative because it is the accidentall forme of the subject in which it is 'T is true accidents work not by their owne power but in and by the power of their substances The hen by her heat which is a qualitie prepares the matter of the egge for introduction of the forme of a chick for the same agent that disposeth the matter introduceth the forme The fire warmes by its heat What 's the reason that you can cut downe a tree with an axe which a childe cannot doe with a woodden dagger 't is because you have the qualities of strength and skill which the childe wants and the axe hath the qualities of strength and sharpnesse which are wanting in the woodden dagger Your reasons by which you prove your assertion are weak viz. Because a greater load-stone hath more effect then a lesser A greater fire heats more then a lesser is therefore heat no qualitie Or must the same degree of heat be in a little fire that is in a greater The qualitie encreaseth and decreaseth according to the quantitie of the subject Secondly A load-stone giveth lesse force to a long iron then to a short one So the fire warmeth more at a neer then at a remoter distance Naturall agents work not in distans Will you deny your facultie of seeing to be a qualitie because you can see better neer at hand then at too remote a distance Thirdly The longer an iron is in touching the greater vertue it getteth Fourthly An iron or load-stone may lose their vertue either by long lying or by fire Will these reasons prove the vertue of the load-stone to be a bodie then vertue I see is a body with you and in the predicament of Substance These your reasons prove the load-stone to work by a qualitie because it hath degrees of more and lesse vertue and because it may be lost Is cold no qualitie because it may be lost in the water Or is the blacknesse of a mans haire no qualitie because it may be lost Or doth the fire consume nothing but bodies Is whitenesse an accident or a bodie a qualitie it is doubtlesse Cast your paper in the fire and what becomes of its whitenesse Qui color albus erat nunc est contrarius albo Your arguments are so weak that they refute themselves and so they will save me a labour Atomes which pierce iron may penetrate any other body Sect. 42. Pag. 186. I know the fire can pierce iron and yet not pierce the dense bodie of the earth which your atomes must doe if they will beget a load-stone And if the fire could pierce the earth yet this will not prove that your magneticall atomes can doe the like except you give them the same Pag. 186. vertue And though light passe thorow thick glasses as you say yet there is some hinderance for the thicker the glasse is the lesse light you shall have Trie if light can passe thorow a thick unpolished horne as it doth thorow the thin horn of a lantern If the thicknesse of a bodie makes no opposition to the light then you may see the Sun as well thorow a thick cloud or thorow the bodie of the Moon as thorow the thin aire If then there be opposition though never so little of the glasse to the light there must needs be some tardity As for odoriferous bodies which you say continue many yeares spending of themselves and yet keep their odour in vigour is a miracle for how can the odour be kept in vigour in those bodies that still spend themselves If odour be a qualitie it must decay as the bodie spends in which it is If odour be a bodie it cannot continue in its vigour and be still spending of it selfe this is a contradiction Besides ' its repugnant to sense for as the flower decayes so doth the smell And though there be a power in roots of vegetables to change the advenient juice into their nature yet there is not the like power in loadstones or salt as you will have it except you will make these also vegetables and so they must not be called stones and mineralls but plants rather Salt doth not change the aire into its substance by lying in it as you say and would prove by the weight of it increased for if it change the aire into its substance it feeds on it and so some parts of its matter must be still wasting and there must be still a repairing of the decayed matter by nutrition and this