as the four first qualities Heat Cold Moisture Dryness and the second qualities which proceed from their intervention Those that proceed from Heat are the qualities of opening rarifying attenuating separation c. Those that proceed from Cold are thickning repelling condensing c. Those that proceed from Moisture softning and relaxation and from Dryness hardning c. 7. Accidents that are produced from the Form as it is living are the Faculties that operate under some determinate degree of life either vegetative sensitive or rational 8. Those that follow and are produced from the Form neither as it is mixt or living but as it is specifically such are neither the first qualities nor those that proceed from their intervention nor Powers contained under any determinate degree of life otherwise every mixt and living thing would possess them as the Anti-epileptick power in the Piony the attraction of Iron in the Magnet c. But from the force and power of the Form as it is precisely such for the particular Mode of a Substance is specifically determined by the Form to its due and fit qualities so that although the Form doth give Form to the Matter according to other Modes of Substance it does not produce in it such a quality as is evident in Rhubarb whose smaller parts have a laxative virtue and the thicker are restringent Mastick in one part is solutive so some Animals in one part carry Poison in another an Antidote It is to be observed that the affections that proceed from a faculty that arises from the Form of a thing as it is specifically such are accounted wonderful because their cause is not evident as others are and likewise because they work no change on any external sense as other affections are determined by the whole Substance because they proceed from a Form totally determined by the Matter as the Power of the Magnet c. are not called occult as if we were wholly ignorant of their nature but because they are not perceived by the external sence These are indeed fine and specious words but stand upon a weak foundation fabulous Peripateticism and if a storm should attack them they would without doubt perish under their own Rubbish And sirst supposing all Bodies to be mixt and to be composed of a collection of the Elements they offer the greatest violence to experience and right reason in regard Bodies which are supposed to be mixt are only the product of water impregnated with ferment as I have plainly demonstrated before in the beginning of this Treatise by evident Examples And in regard a Non-entity can have no passions how can qualities arise from the Form of a mixt that no where exists but admitting this how will those qualities which they call the first come by their original to wit Heat Cold Moisture Dryness which they produced immediately as it were out of the bosom of a mixt for those qualities equally belong to all things and not only to the first Elements as they pretend because all Bodies and all Air Water and Earth are capable of receiving heat or cold c. their Substance remaining unchanged nay even Fire itself may have greater or lesser degrees of Heat and the beams of the Sun are in themselves wet and dry and receive it not from Fire But the reason of that consequence is say they because mixts have those qualities as they contain the Elements either formally as some assert or virtually and eminently as others which in mixts are reduced into act by the advention of the form of the mixt and moreover if those qualities were called the first because they exist in the first Bodies the Elements then also gravity and levity which are called moving qualities would also be first qualities because they are also in the Elements For gravity and levity are equally indifferent with respect to heat or cold and many things are light or heavy in which not even potential heat or cold can be perceived but if gravlty and levity did proceed from heat or cold c. then those things would be lightest that participated most of Fire the contrary whereof is manifested in red hot Iron heated Stones c. because the fire doth not make them in the least lighter and so the Earth should be heavier than Gold Tin Copper c. which according to their suppositions being mixt bodies have more fire in them as was said before Neither do gravity and levity proceed from them mediately to wit by the mediation of rarity and density for then Oyl being thicker would not be lighter than Water and oyly substances would not swim upon the Water c. And if those first qualities as they call them do not rise from those things which are commonly called the Elements from whence will this suppositious Off-spring of theirs deduce its pedigree that is these second qualities which they will have to proceed from the intervention of the first which is impossible to prove although we should grant that heat and cold c. were the first qualities and do primarily exist in the first bodies For if they proceeded from the first qualities we could by them give an exact judgment of those first qualities which I will shew to be simply impossible by an example We can give no judgment concerning the first qualities from colours for almost all Herbs tho very different in their own natures are of a green colour Whiteness is in the cold Snow and hot Arsenick also in the Flower of a white Poppy and the Flower of Galangals and there is a milky juice in hot Wood-spurge and in cold Succory and Lettice 2. Neither can we make any judgment of the qualities from taste for bitter Opium cools and Camphire has a taste like hot Pepper the juice of Poppies refrigerates Acids as Vinegar Oyl of Sulphur of Vitriol juice of Barberies c. heat for they dissolve Coral Stones Pearls and Shells and dissolution and penetration are the Actions of Heat 3. Nor can we make any better judgment of these first qualities from Scents For first man of all Animals has the worst smell and many things that smell strong are cold as Camphire Opium Hemlock c. and many things that have scent are hot as Arsenick Mercury Verdigrease Cantharides c. Lastly no judgment can be given of the first qualities from thickness softness hardness subtilty dryness lubricity friability and roughness for there is none of them that proceed more from cold than heat as is evident from experience for many thick things are hot and many cold and so of the rest But also the qualities of the third rank which they call occult cannot proceed from the figuration of Matter by the form from the mixture of the Elements altho we should grant mixture the figure of the form of fire would only produce heat of water moisture c. and so they cannot any way produce occult qualities for they themselves grant they do not proceed from the first
Medicines out of the three Kingdoms but particularly out of the Animal with a safe Conscience without breach of Charity towards my Neighbour infringing the Laws or any imputation of Superstition That divine harmony of Parts by which Parts and Members industriously concur to the mutual assistance of each other when affected teach and perswade us to this for like are pleased with and preserved by their like Parts taken from Brute Animals are very often subservient to the like parts of our bodies and are more particular medicinally assisting in this Magnetick Cure beyond all others Thus the prepared brains of a Hare much comfort and relieve our brains when they are discomposed and out of order The famous Sennertus amongst others Lib. 1. prax informs us that the lungs of a Fox or Calf are very sanative to those troubled with the Ptysick or any other distemper of the Lungs even the very Women know that the Bone of a Deersheart is a Soveraign Cordial and that Cordial Waters are prepared from it The Dispensatories tell us that the Ventricle of an Hen is a specifick against the weakness of the Ventricle Practitioners say the Liver of a Wolf cures all distempers incident to the Liver It is very well known that the Pizzle of an Hart is a great assistant to those that have an imbecility in generation But we may expect better success from Medicines prepared from the parts of humane body in regard nothing can be more consentaneous and agreeable to the parts afflicted The great lights of Physick those excellent friends to Nature understood this and thought it neither sin nor shame to prepare such sort of Medicines and to administer them to the sick Sympathetically or Magnetically I have followed these as my Guides in regard a Medicine may be had from a mans own body They are not preparred from any part of the body but what is the most contemptible part thereof and these are either from a living or dead body Those taken from a living body are either such as Nature designed to be cut off as the hair beard and nails or those which proceed spontaneously from it as Excrements or else those which Nature drives out as superfluous as Spittle Ear-Wax Sweat Milk Womens monthly courses the Secundine the Navel-string the Cawl Urine and the Dung to these may be added Lice and Worms as also those things that may be taken away without any hurt or prejudice as the Seed Blood and Stone Those taken from a dead body are the Skull the moss of the Skull to which some other things are put in to compose this Sympathetical Unguent the Skin Fat Bones and Flesh out of which the best Medicines in this Sympathetick Cure are compounded which indeed are very salutiferous and necessary I will discover some Sympathetical Medicines which have often been experienced If a person be afflicted with a constant Fever and his Life is despaired of where all other Medicines prove ineffectual then use this Magnetick cure Take the morning Urine of the sick Person and pour it into a Brass or Iron Vessel to this put the white and yolk of an Egg which mixing well together let them boil this done put 'em into a pot that you can conveniently stop so close that no air can get in then put the Pot into an Ants nest digging the pit pretty deep If the Distemper is mortal the sick man will soon end his days but if otherwise after a very severe fit he 'll immediately find himself perfectly recovered In the most dangerous Consumption boyl a new laid Egg in the persons Urine and throw it into a Fish-pond where is plenty of Fish and the Distemper will gradually decrease Or make Dough with Meal and the Urine like a Cake bake it like Bread and cast it to the Fish and Dogs to be devoured and the Distemper will daily decrease I have cured those that have been intolerably afflicted with the Head-ach by putting them into a great Sweat by the Urine without administring any Medicine inwardly although the persons have been many miles distant and this I have performed with good success especially to persons of the best Quality I have cured many persons that were absent of a raging tooth-ach by mixing my Sympathetick liquor with some blood let out of their gums I have cured some that were troubled with the bleeding at the nose by the blood that fell from their nostrils sent to me in a glass or earthen vessel well stopt and that without opening a vein or taking any Medicine inwardly So I have healed up wounds that have lain open a great while by my Magnetick liquor though the medicine never touch the wound This Recipe is especially to be observed and very worthy the taking notice of Take Sulphur Vivum Spirit of Wine rectified and tartarized common Salt mix all these very well together and put them upon humane dung the morâ— new and hot the better then sprinklâ— them with lighted coals or ashes it wiâ—â— work wonderful things to wit the posteriors of that person whose ordure it was will be mightily inflamed and no other part of his body and although he be many miles distant This Experiment hath undoubtedly a great effect on the ordure of the person absent as well as present why may not sweat vomiting stool c. be caused in Man by certain Medicines applied to the Urine There is no body will question that very great sweatings may be raised sympathetical by the Urine I am not the only person that asserts it I have the Famous Engelbertus of Engelen a Maestriecht Physician on my side a person most worthy to be believed and most industriously studious and exquisitely knowing in Metals whose singular art and dexterity in transmutation all Alchymists admire and reverence he hath found out a Secret never sufficiently to be admir'd who putting in Horse-shoe nails one half into a liquor invented for that purpose immediately turns them inro fine Silver And what is more to be observed he says that those Nails that were strait when they were put into this Philosophical liquor come out crooked This person whose truth and reputation are both very great extremely extols this way of curing by Sympathy because being at Rotterdam by the assistance of Mr Reddeswitz who communicated this relation to me he had very great sweats caused sympathetically by his urine insomuch that this celebrated man like another Aeson was restored to a new Nature 3. But if I am asked whether this way of Cure will succeed in all Patients I answer as purges vomits and sudorificks internally applied for the most part operate but sometime have no effect on several bodies so experience tells us it sometimes happens in curing by Sympathy 4. I might here offer a great many more things of this nature but it is not expedient to divulge all together and if we should be more copious in explaining and unfolding many more things of this kind our little Book would
qualities for example The Anti-epileptical virtue is in the Piony because its form is pre-determined from the precise form of the Elements that is either from the form of the Earth Water or Fire c. or from the mixture of two three c. But this cannot by no means be from the reason before laid down to wit the power of opening in the thinner parts of Rhubarb as it consists̄ of such parts nor of binding in the thicker parts and in Mastick for then all close and thick things would lay just claim to this propriety and on the other side the thinner which is contrary to experience And forasmuch as they say that qualities are not called occult because they not sufficiently are known to us but because they are not perceived by the external sences as others are either Sight is not an external sence as well as Taste or if it be the curve attraction of the Iron by the Magnet which the sight clearly discerns is more occult than moisture in the Water or heat in the Fire and Sun which is perceived by the feeling And in regard no body yet was ever capable to demonstrate why Fire is hot or Water moist any more than why the Magnet draws Iron c. then either all those qualities are occult or none For if the first qualities that are more intermediately subject to our sences are not more known than the occult much less the second that arise from them besides what things soever flow from one and the same principle one of them cannot be said to he more occult and the other less but all those qualities proceed from one and the same principle therefore c. There is nothing in what is compounded but Matter Form and Ferment but form is one and the same in all things Man only excepted therefore different qualities cannot proceed from it Matter is one and the same in all to wit Water and for the same reason cannot be the root and fountain of so many diverse qualities therefore smells tastes colours proportions and different figures proceed from ferment as from their original so also attractive repulsive sympathetical and antipathetical power proceed from it or from nothing for Water before it was fermented had neither taste smell or colour nor endued with so many different proportions nor purgative deleterious or antidotal cephalick splenetick hepatick or arthritical c. but according to the diversity of the ferments to which it is united it is capable of receiving myriads of signatures by this it becomes a Metal in Gold yellow in Silver white in Vermilion it is red in Vitriol green or blue elsewhere it becomes a Plant in Rue of a green colour with a sad coloured Flower it is bitter with a nauseous scent and has a quality of expelling poison with an antipathy to Coleworts Then it is an animal in the Tarantula of a dusky colour like a Spider of an hurtful quality to man c. but particularly to trace out how ferment by sporting is capable of producing so many signatures and proprieties is not my present design These things therefore being premised let us proceed to the original of forms which is so obscure and unknown that the whole doctrine of Sympathy and Antipathy hath hitherto remained quite uncultivated but that truth may if it be possible shine in these abstruse mysteries I have thought convenient to examine all the most celebrated opinions and see which of them will best explain the Phoenomena's of Nature and at last to lay down my own opinion concerning Forms The first then is the opinion of the Peripateticks asserting that there is a substantial form in sensitives and vegetables which with Matter doth make up the Compound These Forms they say are immaterial and incorporeal and are not composed of Matter as an essential part yet that they are material in as much as they depend on Matter in esse fieri operari but they do not understand what they say for if they are material they cannot either be subject to generation or corruption for Matter is neither generated c. neither can they inform Matter for then the same thing would inform itself if immaterial then they will not be subject to corruption and consequently not to generation Nothing can be produced from nothing but Forms have nothing but Matter or its accidents to arise from but according to their own confession they do not proceed from Matter a from an essential part therefore they must proceed from its accidents or from nothing but it cannot be from its accidents for then accidents would not only produce a form but create it Moreover form would not be a principle in regard it was produc'd from something else They say the form is produc'd from nothing of its own not nothing of its subject but this distinction will not remove the difficulty in regard they will not allow it to be made from a subject that is from Matter as an essential part therefore it is yet essentially produced from nothing If the form were produced out of the power of the matter it either would exist Matter or not not the latter because as was said before it is produced of nothing if the former its existence will be either physical or metaphysical not physical because Matter is pure power and a physical existence is act if it be only metaphysical as they distinguish how would Form receive a physical existence from Matter when no body doubts that it itself hath none Another opinion is that of the Epicureans who in regard they saw that Aristotle's opinion could not well be defended and substantial Forms seeming unaccountable to them denied that there were any such thing and had recourse to Atoms for the constitution and generation of a Natural Body saying that there were two principles of concrete Bodies Atoms and Vacuum the existence of Atoms and the things composed of them considering how much was added every hour to those things which grow slowly and how much those things diminished which were in a decaying state as in the nourishment of Vegetables and Animals and in insensible decreasings in the mean while not observing that Branches Leaves Flowers Fruits and Seeds every year become Trees that if every thing were exactly weighed we must allow that every hour they require several ounces of nutriment The same thing also happens in the nourishment of Animals if the quantity of the meat and drink that is received in be compared with the excrement and besides the trunk of Trees every year grows larger besides what leaves c. grow those that are of opinion that they require indivisible Atoms and that the matter cannot be performed any other way are confuted by the testimony of the sences in regard nothing as was proved before is required to the nutrition of Vegetables besides water Besides they say those Atoms are indivisible and altogether of the same nature on account of the identity of their matter whence there
can be no disparity Besides they say they are endued with magnitude figure gravity c. and that one is greater and heavier than another and that they have different figures to wit spherical cubical c. this is a very difficult matter to be believed But if it be enquired how this can be demonstrated that they have different figures in regard Atoms cannot be felt and that concrete bodies do receive figures and proportions from the forms by ferment as was said before and not from those Atoms that have no Existence Lastly they assert that Atoms which cannot be divided have no Vacuum in them but that all concrete Bodies as they are harder or softer have more or less of Vacuity For they say that Fire Forms Spirit the Souls of Brutes the effluviums of the Magnet of Amber c. are made of the flower of Matter of more subtil Atoms than other Bodies are compos'd of Hence it follows that Bodies by how much the more compact and hard they are and have more matter by so much the more active they are Spirits forms c. because they have much Vacuum are less active because a Vacuum is nothing and nothing cannot be attractive besides the same thing would give a form to itself for rarity and density do make no specifical difference and if the animal spirits in Brutes should perceive all things for they do not distinguish them from the soul and that from temperament the like would be perceived by it self that is the more subtile Atoms which are the Soul would perceive other sensibles and less subtile Atoms Lastly they say that all things are generated by the conjunction of Atoms and to be destroyed and ruined by their separation and that all the propreties of Nature have their original and are explained by the various ways of their agitation conjunction separation and disposition and are moved by their own innate gravity adscribing general proprieties to them to wit magnitude figure identity of substance gravity and also specifical proprieties as are the different species of Figures smoothness sharpness angularity roughness bluntness rotundity and these they say are congenite proprieties and exist in their subjects as they are such Then they adscribe to 'em proprieties that inhere or may be separated from their subjects and only inhere in 'em as they concur to the generation or corruption of concrets as concursion position connexion order and number In the first place I ask if magnitude figure and general and specifical proprieties as are the species of Figures round oblong orbicular c. if they concur and are joyned together will ever generate any other qualities different from themselves For Magnitude Gravity different Figures as plainness Angularity c. do produce different dimensions according to longitude and latitude and profoundity but will never produce Smells Tastes Colours or other qualities either manifest or occult For qualities generate other qualities like themselves and no other as heat in its own nature can only produce heat so different pieces of Figures joyned or separated produce diversity of Figures and nothing else beside This is the Opinion of some Physicians that in every Compound there is a Form and that it is distinguished according to the different degrees of things In such thick mists as this is I ought Candid Reader to use philosophical liberty and deliver my opinion amongst the rest for the confirmation of sympathetical Cure I must beg leave to repeat some things about Ferment namely that there is something always coevous and concreated that prepares Matter to receive its last perfection by its union to the Form and is not produced out of the power or dispositions of the Matter and is neither created anew or can be annihilated of its own accord That I may not be without witness I will produce some Examples The Spittle of a Mad Dog being forced into the Flesh by biting makes Men Oxen Sheep Dogs Horses c. run mad and use the actions and have the qualities of Dogs as biting and fearing the Water So those that drink the Blood or eat the Brains of a Cat will have their qualities The sting of the Tarantula will make both Men and Brutes like Tarantula's restless and in constant motion Those that drink the blood of wild Beasts will be of a savage temper The biting of an Asp besides other bad symptoms will cause the aâ—sticulations of that creature as frequent gaping the turning of the body and members c. The flesh of lascivious animals as Sparrows Sthinci c. create letchery in those that eat them These things being laid down I say first When the sensitive soul of man for this venom doth not affect the immortal and rational soul at least not immediately or a brute that happens to be bit wounded or to eat as is said before has the same operations as the mad Dog Tarantula Cat Asp Wolf c. and the vital operations are not only changed but the natural also as may be seen in the urine of those that are afraid of water we must either own that they have two forms to wit the form of a Dog an Ox c. or else that it is the soul of a Dog c. from whence these operations proceed and so we must judge of the rest or else we must allow the operations of the mad Dog do not proceed from his form but may equally proceed from the form of the Ox the Horse the Sheep c. We must also allow that the form of the mad Dog is not in his spittle nor by that can be transplanted We must own also that Oxen Horses c. that are bitten have their own form and as the soul of the Dog is not in his spittle so neither is that of the Tarantula in its poison c. otherwise there would be no need of seed or diversity of sexes for generation which is absurd although all things were Ex Traduce the natural consequence then is in regard the operations that are in the Ox Horse c. bit by the mad Dog are altogether the same operations of the mad Dog himself and so of the other examples that the soul of the mad Dog Tarantula c. is not capable of being transplanted by biting or wounding for if that were possible then there would be two souls together at once in every part of the body and other absurdities that the souls of brutes are altogether the same neither are they to be distinguished specifically of themselves and in their own nature but all the difference arises from the accession of different ferments This is very evident in Vegetatives for wholsom herbs if they grow near the holes of Serpents have the same power as the Serpents poison so Wine will have a laxative power from Mercury and their forms shall remain entire and unchanged There may innumerable examples be produced for the distinction of ferments Therefore ferments make the form of things very ductile and