as it were the sheath of the Earth nigh the Poles is deeper than under the compass of the Sun for if Lucifer or the Day-star being willing to place his seat over the North may be understood to have been guilty of pride Truly if he were not higher in the same place that should not be imputed as a signe of arrogancy especially since in the places where the holy Scriptures were written the Pole-star hath alwayes seemed very neere to the Horizon neither doth the Heaven there promise any thing of height as to sight But in our Horizon I have seen the whole Body of the Sun to have given a shadow on the pin of the Diall a little after the ninth houre in the fourth moneth called June but in the morning I have seen the whole Body of the Sun above the Horizon about the fourth houre for it did not as vet cast a shadow by reason of the thickness of the Air and Vapours Therefore the shorâest night is onely of seven houres at the most but in the Winter Solstice the Sun ariseth â5 minutes before the eighth but sets 27 minutes before the fourth Therefore the shorest day is at least 7 houres and 42 minutes But it dârogates or takes away from the roundness of the Sphere to have more of light than darkness At length modern or late made Navigations have seen the Sun under the North for a moneths space before that the perfect roundness of the Heaven had suffered that thing CHAP. XI The Air. 1. The Dreams of the Schooles concerning the maystness of Air. 2. A foolish or unsavory objection 3. They preâuppose impossibilities 4. The Air is never made Water through a condensing of its parts 5. They beg the Principle 6. A ridicuâous thing of the Schooles concerning the ââtive heat of the Air. 7. The old Wives fiction of an Antiperâstâsiâââ compassing about of the contrary 8. The deep stupiditâââ of the Schooles are discovered 9. Arguments 10. Another alike stâpidity 11. That the Air is colder than Snow 12. An Exhortation of the Authour unto young beginners A Mathematicall demonstration that the Air and Water are primigeâiall or first-born Elements and ever unchangeable by cold or heat into each other THE Schooles with their Aristotle do hitherto endow the Air with eight degrees that is to be most moyst but to be hot unto four degrees or to a mean but they give the greatest coldness to the water with a slack or mean moystness And so they command the Air to be twice as moystas the water for that because the Air by its pressing together and conjoyning doth generate the water But I pray you what other thing is that than to have sold Dreams for truth For if the Air be co-thickned the moysture thereof shall be also more thick greater and more palpable in water than it was before in Air seeing that condensing cannot make a new essential form nor is it a principle of generations what other thing is that than impertinently to trifle At least the water should not be but Air co-thickned in the moysture to ten fold or rather to an hundred fold and more active and therefore and straightway it should moysten more and stronger than the Air by a hundred fold So far as it that therefore the water should be lesse moyst than the Air. But if a naked condensing doth dispose the Air to a new form seeing the same disposition of the inward efficient is the necessary cause of that thing generated it must needs be that the same doth remain in the thing produced and so if the Air co-thickned be water there shall now be but two Elements to wit Water and Earth Whiles the water shall be as moyst as while it was being at first Air to wit wherein the condensing alone came which is a co-uniting of parts but not a formall transchanging of a thing into a thing For truly the form every way re-bounding from the moysture of the Air being condensed into an hundred fold it shall be even moyster and shall more moysten by an hundred fold than the auntient Air. But surely the water doth not moysten by reason of thickness for otherwise the Earth should hitherto more moysten because moysture onely doth moysten and not thickness For else Quick-silver should more moysten the wooll or hand than water For whatsoever doth more moysten that it self is also more moyst and on the other hand whatsoever in an Elementary nature is moyster that likewise doth more moysten Nature laughs to require belief of things known by reason of sense from a Dream and even till now to teach the shameful devises of Airstotle for truth But the Schooles will say we must thus teach it for a Maxim That by reason whereof every thing is such that thing it self is more such as though that for the honour of a Maxim we must belie God! But the water is not moyst but for the Air therefore the Air ought to be moyster than the water But they shall sweat more than enough before they will prove the subsumption or second Proposition but the Air is neither moyst nor hot in it self and whatsoever of moysture there is in it that is a stranged contained in it never touching at the nature of Air although vapours may be contained in the porinesses or hollow places of the Air. For what doth it belong to the nature of Glasse if it shall inclose water within it For I shall teach by and by that it is impossible for Air and water to be changed into each other And so by absurdities the Schooles do wholly suppose impossible speculations For it also contains an absurd and impossible thing that Air condensed should be made water and be the perpetual matter of Fountains For there hath been Air pressed together by some in an Iron Pipe of one ell almost the breadth of fifteen fingers which afterwards in its driving our hath like a hand-gun discharged with Gunpowder sent a Bullet thorow a Board or Plank Which thing verily could not be done if the air by pressing together might by force be brought into water Especially because that experiment did no lesse succeed in the deepest cold of winter than in the heat of Summer What if therefore the Air being pressed together by force in a Pipe and cold season be not changed into water by what authority shall the Schooles confirm their fictions touching the co-thickning of the Air for the springing up or over-flowing and the continuance of Fountains For Cold hath not the Beginnings Causes and properties of generating in nature Yea no moysture at all is found in the aforesaid Pipe and moreover wet Leather in the end of a Hand-Pistoll drieth presently It is also a ridiculous thing to prove the Air to be moyst by the original of Fountains and likewise to prove the rise of Fountains from the supposed moysture of the Air. Both Arguments of the Schooles is from the scarcity of truth and a childish begging
of the Principle And that they may adorn the four Elements with qualities they attribute to every one one the highest quality but another a slack one and the Schooles command nature to obey their fictions Therefore they say that the Air is slackly bot because they will have it neer to the seigned Element of fire that is or because it borroweth that slack quality of its Neighbour and it changeth its proper and native disposure at the pleasure of its Neighbour and that impertinently while the speech is of native properties Or because it hath that quality of its own disposition and although slack therefore notwithstanding it shall also have such a Neighbour which thing is alike impertinent and naught And that they may prove the moderate heat of the Air they carry on the like foolish invention of an Antiporistasis or a compassing about of the contrary To wit that the Air in its uppermost part is hot by reason of a nearness of the fire and so they seign not an essential heat but a begged and improper one by accident and that nigh the Earth it is likewise hot from the reflexion of the Sun-beams Which heat is for a little space a stranger by accident and therefore a seigned property of the Air. But they will have the middle Region of the Air to be wonderful cold by reason of an Antiperistasis To wit because both parts of the hot air doth compass it about Whose like they say doth happen to deep wells they being cold in Summer and luke-warm all the Winter But I wonder at the deep or profound benummednesses of the Schooles and the drowsie distemper of the auntients 1. Because from this their whole Structure it appeareth that the air is generally cold but not meanly hot 2. For truly the fire is not an Element in nature and much lesse is it under the hollow of the Moon neither therefore can it make hot the uppermost part of the Air except by a Dream 3. For if the Air be hot by it self and of its Elementary property then is it alwayes and every where hot even in deep Wells 4. But if it be hot through any other thing proper of familiar unto it which makes it hot then besides that it should have something besides it self mixt with it from whence the Elementary simplicity of its own Body should cease it should also alwayes and every where actually be hot or lastly should be hot by reason of something applied to it acting by accident Which thing is impertinent as often as the thing to be proved is taken as concerning essential things Therefore if the Air be not by it self hot it must needes be cold by it self Since those two do subsequently exclude each other in nature 5. If the fire be never cold or moyst and the water be never dry so the Air can never be lesser than intensively or most moyst and slackly hot if the Schooles speak truth 6. They would have that to be the middle Region of the Air which is scarce distant half a mile from us being unmindeful of their own Doctrine To wit that the Diameter of the Air exceedes the Diameter of the Water ten fold but that this is greater than the Diameter of the Earth two fold which fiction being granted the Semi-diameter of the Air should be deeper than 570000 miles Therefore half a mile should be as nothing in respect of the middle Air. Oh ye Schooles I pray you awake For if the Air should of its own accord and of its own nature be hot by what cause at length should it be cold in its middle part For is it because its Neighbour on both sides is hot But then the Air would not propose to it self wrathfulness but rather joy from the agreeableness of its neere nature For why doth the Air put off its natural property because it did on both sides touch the luke-warm Air agreeable to it self For how shall luke-warm powred on luke-warm wax cold because it doth finde luke-warmness on both sides Or if cold be placed between two Colds shall it therefore wax hot in its middle I cannot sufficiently wonder at the unpolished rudeness of the Schooles who deliver the Doctrine of Antiperistasis which desireth so great credulity not judgement For although that fiction should please us while the Air is hot about the Earth but certainly it could by no meanes in the Winter seasons For truly neither then indeed is that middle Region of the Air adorned with a native heat 9. It is a wonder I say that such absurd falsehood and Doctrine hath not yet breathed out of the Alps. And so hence it is manifest that the Peripateticks do even from a study of obstinacy teach known falsehoods least they should not swear in the words of Aristotle or that no judgement at all is left them that they may ingeniously perform their office and that they may think they have done enough if they follow the herds of those that went before them Therefore Antiperistasis is a dream of his who when he knew not the least thing in nature yet would seem to have known all things and to be worshipped for a Standard-defender by the Schooles his followers But because Aristotle fleeth to the heat of Wells in Winter for the demonstration of an Antiperistasis that shall straightway fall to the ground through the instrument whereby we measure the just temperature of the encompassing Air Wherein we see by handicraft-demonstration that the Air in deep Wells and Cellers is stable in the same point of heat whether it shall please us to measure it in Winter or lastly in the greatest heats of Summer 10. But it being granted that there were not an equall temperature in Wells but yet surely it would be a foolish thing for the Air otherwise naturally moderately hot sometimes to be cold sometimes again to be hot as it were through despight by reason of the applied alteration of the encompassing air 11. The holy Scriptures declare the Snow to be colder than the water because Snow is water in which the utmost power of cold is imprinted and the Air to exceed the Snow in coldness hence it is read He that spreads abroad the Snow and the Wooll that the Wheat may be kept safe under the Snow from the cruelty of the cold Air as it were under a woolly Covering For we see by handicraft operation that a member almost frozen together waxeth hot again under the Snow and is preserved from putrifaction or blasting because else the Air would straightway proceed wholly to congeal it or if it be suddenly brought to the fire it dieth by reason of the hasty action of another extream Therefore this is to have gone thorow meanes if it be to go from the cold air thorow Snow water and then into a slack luke-warmness Therefore Snow is lesse cold than air 12. But why to the moystness of the water do they implore its thickness for moystening which is a ridiculous
Meteor is reckoned by the holy Scriptures among wise men Which square if Astrologicall Predictions shall through a rash boldness exceed they are not onely vain and conjectural but driven out of both Testaments of the holy Scriptures with the name of Sooth-sayers of Heaven So that St. Ambrose doth rightly compare them to Spiders Webs which indeed do serve to take flies and gnats ensnaring themselves but by a stronger living Creature they are most easily broken asunder So indeed these Predictions do catch onely those that are apt to believe and lesse firm in the faith But that they are vain in themselves and framed by conjecturall Rules I prove because they are supported with a double foundation to wit with none at all and by a false one that which concerns nothingness is that they will have attributed to the Seven Planets the figure inclinations strength or valour wit fortunes and death of him that is born Seeing God hath appointed the Stars onely for signes seasons dayes and years but not for the causes of Predictions And so if those Predictions do contradict divine appointment for that very cause they are null and false Secondly because it is not yet agreed among Astrologers hitherto concerning the Scheme or order of the Heavens To wit whether Mercury and Venus are carried in particular Orbs beneath the Sun according to Ptolomy and all the antient Judiciaries Or whether they are rowled about in like or equall Circles round about the Sun Which thing the Optick-Tube or Glasse hath thus searched out therefore the Aphorismes of Predictions supported by that foundation that those two Planets are alwayes lower than the Sun do fall to the ground And then if two of the Planets Venus being the greatest or chiefest Star except the Sun be carried about the Sun and they are of so great power in judgements and so near to us those spots or Stars in the Sun or most near to it shall likewise be of far greater authority to refell all the Aphorismes of the Antients And the Stars which have lately been found to be moved about Jupiter shall conjecturally convince of the Rules of Almegistus whether they were written from a foundation That in the mean time I may be silent touching the opinion of Copernicus which at this day doth not want its followers and those of no small authority although they do presse their consent under silence which opinion notwithstanding once breaking forth will ruine all apparitions in the Heaven and Predictions Fourthly the point of nativity is uncertain and seeing that the Stars do vary in every point Every prediction is of necessity uncertain I being sometimes deceived in my younger years have attributed very much to the significations of the Stars but when I could not satisfie my self that by the remarkable accident of him that is born I could finde the point of his Nativity which is plainly necessary if those accidents do any way proceed from the Stars at length in behalf of a great Nobleman I described or wrote down his accidents to wit That in the eleventh year of his age a Wife of six years was married unto him he having obtained the degree of Knight of the Garter having travelled far even to the nineteenth year that he had received a wound in a Duel that his right thigh was broken by chance in a Coach the precise houres being adjoyned with very many observations of things The Countrey where he was born being added on the ninth day of the fourth month called June and the houre between seven and ten in the forenoon of the year 1604. I my self went to the most skilfull Judiciaries the Question being also sent away into other Countries with a promise of 600 Crowns to him who could divine or tell the point of his Nativity to us known from the aforesaid accidents At length none touched at the true point but he that came nearest did differ as yet the space of seven points above half an houre from thence There were in the mean time Standard-defenders who denied that such a point was between the seventh and tenth houre by which such accidents could be signified but indeed that point was found to be presently before the fifth houre in the morning yet in the truth of the matter he was born at London I being present seven points after the ninth houre Solar or according to the Sun and not horologiall or according to the Diall or Clock Afterwards therefore I with a notable repentance lamented my aptnesses of belief Moreover touching the falseness of the foundation of Predictions it as yet more clearly appeareth For indeed they themselves do confess that their Eccentricks or things not having one and the same Center c. to be meer fictions and almost impossible to save or preserve their speculations which soundeth that they are ignorant of the Orbs or Circles of the Heavens and the carryings of the Stars And so these absurd fictions being supposed it s no wonder that many near akin to them do follow I have known a remedy whereby otherwise the young would stick in the birth for the space of a day and houres and that drink being taken the Woman brings forth presently after a quarter of an houre and so the point of Nativity is deceived and likewise Herms's Scale of Empsuchosis or quickning but this Remedy I have written else-where to consist in the Liver and Gaul of an Eele being dryed and powdered Lastly the falshood doth more appear for they say that Saturn is a cold and dry melancholy Planet and therefore envious and stirring up to thefts and treacheries plainly evill because of the nature of the Earth But that Mars because he is hot and dry not the Sun is evill cholerick a Warriour murderer and cruel because of the nature of the Element of fire But that Jupiter and Venus are of the nature of Air merry sanguine good even as the Moon and Mercury being cold and moyst are of the nature of water and phlegme And so also therefore of a middle nature But a moderateness agreeth to the most hot Sun not a humour nor an Element Wherefore either the Sun shall languish by reason of injury or the feigned powers of the Elements are badly attributed as causes of the properties of the Stars whose property it is not to change but to give an alterative Blas to these inferior Bodies Wherein many falshoods come to hand For first of all they do causatively âink evill within the Heaven Secondly That the qualities of the Earth are evill or naught Thirdly They place the fire among Elementary Bodies Fourthly The Stars also even the two Elements which God had made were not to be good 5. They falsely compare the Stars in their causative property to Elementary qualities 6. Therefore they do falsly attribute to the Stars a causall virtue of fortune wit c. with respect to the first qualities Wherefore since there are in the judiciall part of Astrologie so great nakednesses
piercing our middle life and it disposeth it into the last life by the first life of the poyson For they are formall sparks soulified or not soulified be it all as one Because they do not act by a formall leave and liberty whereby they pierce in a point and insinuate in an instant And they do act that which they are commanded by the Lord to act And then we must consider after what manner they so easily prostrate or destroy our life 1. To wit whether they do transchange ours their own 2. Or indeed do drive the Archeus into a fury that being mad he may destroy himself and diffuse himself throughout the whole Body 3. Or whether indeed they do mortifie by a depriving of light to wit by blowing out the light of our spark in the Archeus 4. Or at length do press together the Archeus under them by a poysonsome exaltation of themselves First of all it is certain that this is not done by contrariety the which is demonstrated elsewhere never to have entred into nature 2. It is certain that it is done by gifts conferred by God on the poyson which are called properties 3. And it is certain that poysons do divers wayes act into us and that their differences have appointed a fourfold manner of poysons 4. And at length it is certain that God hath not created death as neither poysons as the destruction of men whom he endowed with immortality notwithstanding his integrity being corrupted things became to him deadly which before were not poysons unto him In the mean time some poysons are fermentall which do not destroy us so much by the force of a lightsome spark and by a formall property as by a certain ferment almost odourable and so one onely life doth on every side fear many enemies unto it For such sort of ferments do more approach to the nature of Bodies Thou seest that thing in a sulphurated Torch or Link the which being lighted and hung up in a Glassen Vessel will burn indeed and will fill the Vessel with the sublimed smoak of the Sulphur the which although thou shalt cause to exspire and again shalt put into the Vessel a burning Torchor Link in the very moment that it entreth it is extinguished Not indeed by the Sulphurous smoak the which seeing it self is as yet Sulphur ought rather to be enflamed but by a wild Gas the onely Odour whereof extinguisheth the new flame not indeed by a materiall blast but by its Odour Yea it not onely extinguisheth a sulphurated Torch but also the flame of a Candle and that is proved Because if thou shalt send the flame into a spatious Hogs-head so long as the Vessel casts the smell of a hoary putrefaction or otherwise doth contain any small quantity of dregs putrified by continuance it blowes out the flame of the Link or Candle Understand thou therefore the same thing proportionably in vitall formall sparks For so indeed in Vaults and Mines men are easily killed by the Odours and Gas of the place So also a pestilent poyson doth oft-times without delay slay the vitall light Because such kinde of poysons are positive and blowing out mortall but not privative ones For neither can they be endowed with any other Etymologie than that they do efficiently blow out by their poysonsome Gas the formall light sensitive Soul or substantial Form of our life And therefore they have place among reall Beings and indeed among the most mighty or potent Beings CHAP. XXIII Nature is ignorant of contraries 1. The bruit Beasts were not in Paradise that man might not see a brutall coupling but that he might remain innocent of shame 2. The bruit Beasts were brought from elsewhere to our first Parent in Eden that he might name them might thereby praise God and acknowledge himself 3. What kinde of Trees were there 4. Many individuals were created in every particular kinde but not in man 5. Man alwayes ate fleshes and of the Sacrifices themselves besides the Turks and Calvinists 6. The first contemplative Philosophy of weeping Adam 7. Tillage the first of Arts. 8. Zoosophie or the wisdom of keeping living Creatures the second 9. Meteoricall Astrologie the Chamber-maid of Tillage 10. The entrance of Medicine was the last 11. They stand as yet in the first Principles Galen hath brought in a Method too easie and therefore suspected 12. Galen hath feigned one onely naturall indication to wit by contraries 13. The deceipt of that Maxim is discovered 14. Paracelsus being badly constant to himself scoffed at Galen 15. He badly judged that all healing is made by like things 16. That Seeds do not operate by contrariety but by a Command known from a former cause to the onely Lord of things 17. They know not which way the necessities of Seeds may be directed 18. The blindness of Heathenisme is hidden in the Maxim of contrarieties 19. The foolishness of Aristotle concerning the first matter is noted 20. The Argument out of Aristotle is retorted upon Galen 21. Some Arguments concluding the same thing 22. The Schooles are deceived by a metaphoricall and hyperbolicall or excessive introduced nature 23. That in the Elements contraries are not to be granted 24. That the greatest cold doth peaceably combine with the greatest heat in the same point of Air and that without contrariety 25. What a Relolleum is 26. Water doth not wax hot by fire by reason of an introduced contrariety 27. Water doth not quench fire by reason of contrariety 28. It is proved from the Elements that fire is not a substance 29. Moysture and dryness are scarce qualities to be understood in the abstract 30. Neither are they Relolleum's after the manner of heat and cold 31. That there is not a radicall co-mixture of moyst with dry 32. One onely Question of the Authour propounded to all the Learned who believe a temperature of the Elements in a mixt Body 33. That the Elements are not contrary to each other 34. That the Elements do not waste or consume each other 35. That the Elements do not fight 36. That things without life have not contrariety 37. It is proved from Faith and then by some Arguments that the action of nature is void of contrariety 38. The same thing is shewen in other things 39. What Nature may be 40. The name of a Crisis is impertinent 41. Paracelsus is noted because he will have a remedy to work by reason of likenesse 42. In what the vertue of a Medicine may be seated 43. Why hunger kills 44. What things are required for healing 45. The Doctrine of Paracelsus is refuted 46. A foolish Objection 47. Sin is not opposed to virtue simply in a privative manner 48. That the poyson of a mad Dog of Serpents of a Bull c. have not at all a contrariety of causes from whence they are made 49. A Declaration of what went before I Having already sufficiently contemplated of the integrity of nature afterwards by little and little I
water is a transitory Relolleum because it is violently brought in For therefore the fire ceasing from which it was produced of its own accord it presently is diminished and ceaseth being no longer cherished That the heat in the hot water being divided throughout the least Atomes of its subject perisheth of its own accord but is not overcome expulsively by a contrariety Because a Relolleum is an efficient quality not proceeding out of the Ferments and Seeds of things And it is twofold to wit One in its own body but the other in a strange body Amongst proper Relolleum's some are seperable As cold in the air and water but others are unseperable as heat in the light of the Sun Candle and Fire which can never wax cold A strange Relolleum is violent by which if it be not nourished it therefore perisheth by its moments and degrees And therefore it is called transient as is heat in the water Therefore aire and water are not made hot by the fire through contrariety but by the generating of a strange Relolleum as it acteth that which was commanded it to act after a different manner of acting with seeds And therefore it neither acteth to or for a form In like manner when water extinguisheth fire or fire lifts up water into a vapour that never happens by the force of contrariety Because the whole fire of the universe cannot blot out or lessen the least moistness from one only drop of water Wherefore the contrariety of the fire should be in vain and foolish or its fight vain and invalide But that aire cannot in any ages by Art or Nature be converted into water or this likewise into aire as I have elsewhere demonstrated by Science Mathematical and by other means sufficiently enough demonstrated For neither is the fire quenched by the water by reason of the presence of a contrary cold in the water For so hot water should not quench fire And fire burns more strongly under the blowing and cold of the North than of the South and the coldest blowing of Bellows doth the more kindle or enflame the fire Therefore water slayeth fire but not fire water Also fire gives place not being overcome by cold but being choaked it perisheth And so hot Oyl doth extinguish a bright burning Coale If therefore contraries ought to be under the same generall kind fire cannot be contrary to water seeing fire is not a Substance even as I have sufficiently demonstrated elsewhere Lastly If they were contrary they should be primarily by themselves substantially and immediately contrary as simple bodies and that being granted their action ought to be a like and equall sight which thing I have already before shewn to be false even as also that nothing is contrary to substances For by the beholding of which two things to wit The fire and the water the Schools have feigned every contrariety of Mixtures and Complexions in the Universe What wonder is it therefore that the contrariety of nature dreamed of in the Schools is now to be had in suspition Seeing their own privative contraries are without contrariety likeness or equality combate co-mixture and grappling of forces Furthermore moysture and dryness are qualities scarce to be understood in the abstract even as otherwise heat is considered in the hand besides or without the fire yea in its improper subject as is the water but moystness and dryness are rather very Bodies themselves qualitated or endowed with qualities Neither therefore are they attained by parts and degrees with the leave of the Schooles after the manner of qualities For moystness is not properly produced but a moyst Body being added to a dry one more of the moyst Body is applyed and so moystness improperly waxeth great That is moysture increaseth quantitatively but not qualitatively But water doth never wax dry although it may deceive the eyes by vanishing away Even as concerning Gas elsewhere Again Siccum or Dry soundeth properly ex-succum or without juyce and contains onely a denyall of moysture But although through the admixture of dry water may seem to be diminished in Clay yet the water doth alwayes keep its own intrinsecall moysture As also the dry Body keeps likewise its own dryness Because there is not a piercing co-mixture of those in the Root but onely an applying of parts Therefore moysture and dryth are so tied to a Body that they can in no wise be distinguished from it And therefore they are not Relolleum's in manner of heat and cold which are brought in by degrees The whole water indeed vanisheth away into a vapour yet it never assumeth even the least quantity of dryth But if of meal and water pulse or bread be made and at length the nature of a fermentall seed being conceived they do passe into a Stone yet truly those things are coagulated ones which do cover and vail the antient moystness of the water but at length the antient water is fetched again from thence For it was not dryed up nor hath it perished although it were coagulated by the seed of things For I have demonstrated elsewhere mechanically and mathematically that all solid Bodies are onely of water nor that they do admit of the congress or concourse of the other Elements Or that every rangible Body is at length resolved into a simple Elementary water such as falleth down through Rain yea being of equall weight with its former solid Body which onely head destroyeth the compact temperature of the Elements and the intestine and uncessant Warr of qualities in us wherefore it behoves the Schooles diligently to search for altogether other causes of Diseases which I have declared by the unheard of beginnings of naturall Philosophy Therefore it is a part of blockishness to be admired at to have dreamed that moysture cometh to a thing by degrees and likewise that moysture and dryness are slackened in the Elements And so that it is a huge fiction to have introduced these stupid Dreams into the Families of Diseases and Cures and confidently to have built upon these the whole foundation of healing So that throughout the whole ranks of moystures and dryths they have married each other as well by their mutuall kinne as by the bawderies of heat and cold To wit for one onely fault that their Neighbours might mournfully deliver their substance unto their vanities of temperaments Being altogether ignorant that there is no piercing of moyst with dry in nature no radicall union co-mixture or radicall temperature whereby they may divide between each other in the bosom of a Form And I do propose one question at least to all by me resolved elsewhere how many contrary Elements soever they hitherto suppose to conflux into the constitution of Bodies which are believed to be mixt Since indeed they suppose two weighty ones to wit the water and Earth and two light ones And likewise do suppose a penetration of Bodies to be impossible in nature Thirdly also seeing they suppose that Gold without controversie
the mean time they do now and then assoon as may be reach the Air but sometimes they run head-long down by long journeys and Pipes of Earth and rockie Stones before they yeild themselves to the Light yet there was the same reason necessity and end of their Institution on both sides to wit the will of him who created all things for our uses But it remains to crave leave that Aristotelical spirits may indulge my liberty if I shall judge it a dream impossible to Nature that Fountaines should be bred from a co-thickning of Air For indeed that also is chiefly true That Air was never nor is it to be in any Age Water even as neither was Water to assume the Form of Air. For they are first-born Elements and the constant Wombs of things stable from the Creation of the World and so remaining unto the end thereof But whatsoever hath through the ranks of Generations subscribed it self unto successive change whether it may seem to be Earthly Stony or Liquory it derives all that from the mass of three Principles dedicated unto the Tragedy of Generation but not from the first Elements which rejoyce not but in a stable continuance and the which do again lay up their deserved Youngs into their antient ââceptacles until the seeds are ripe for the Generation of a new Off-spring which Seeds the same Principles of Bodies being in the mean time thorowly changed by Digestions do again cloath and re-assume For from an invisible and incorporeal seed entertained in the Wombs of the Elements and putting on the Principles of Bodies all Generation in the Universe which is called voluntary is made Others have called that thing a Flux from a Non-being unto a Being which things that they may become more perspicuous it is to be noted that unto the production of every thing two onely Sexes if not one promiscuous one at least have concurred Therefore also by the same Law of a worldly harmony there are Originally two onely Elements in the Universe to wit the Air and the Water which are sufficiently insinuated from the sacred Text by the Spirit swimming upon the Abysse or great Deep of Waters in the first beginnings of the World The Earth therefore and the Fire or Heaven if they are Elements they are called secondary ones proceeding from the former For whatsoever of Earths rocky Stones Gemms Sands c. doth exist or flowes forth into a stinking Vapour or is at first changed into Ashes a Calx or Lime or at leastwise through the Society of some Addittament into a Salt the off-spring of Waters presently afterwards they all the volatile Summe exceeding or over comming the fixed Summe are made aiery and vapoury Efluxes rushing-into water with a hastened Violence And so that whatsoever is earthy hard solid and compacted seeing all that is reducible unto a more simple thin pure and former remaining substance pardon the Novelty most resplendent Prince it must needs be that it hath no Efficacy of an Element at all but that they are more latter things than Air and Water In like manner we say of the Heaven that the Heavens shall be changed shall wax Old and Perish and so that the Heaven and the Earth shall at length Perish the like message of which Destruction thou shalt not find concerning the Air and Water In the next place the Water or Air could never in any Age be reduced into any other former Body by Art or Nature This therefore is the Face this the Ordination this in the next place is the Office Combination Fate and End of the Elements to wit that the unchanged Essence of two most simple Bodies and their unmixed substance may afford a vital Womb or Prop unto Seeds and Fruits until at length the number of things to be generated being accomplished the heap of Principles together with the Seeds do constitute strange Families and Colonies their Bride-bed being separated in a more blessed Seat For the very many Dreams wherewith the World hath suffered it self to be hitherto circumvented the handicraft Operation of the Fire doth deride with loud Laughter Who indeed will deny but that the Water is easily changed into a Vapour But that Vapour or Exhaltation is so far from being Air that the Powder of Marble or a Flint may sooner be Water as we have shewn For a Vapour is in very deed materially and formally nothing else but a heap of the Atoms of Water lifted up on high The which our School shews forth more clearly than the Light at Noon The Air therefore whether it be received in hot or cold Glasses and pressed together therein shall never afford Water but according to how much of a Vapour that is of an extenuated Water it shall contain within it But the Water is seperated into very small conspicuous Drops against the Sun thorow the Glass at the Beginning of Distillation as long as the sides are cold to wit while through the vigour of Heat it flies away extenuated into a Vapour And that thing indeed happens no otherwise than by a proper Magnal which in things mixt and so also in the Water it self is the Skie thinner than the Air and dis-joynable from the same and sustaining its compression and enlargment contending for a middle thing or Nature between a Body and not a Body receiving the Impressions of the External Stars of its native Soyle being altogether intimate in all things by reason of which alone and not of Air we draw our Breath a proper Magnal I say and a spiritual Being in the Water doth indeed lift the Water on high it being lightned by Heat procuring a divulsion or renting asunder of the Magnal which same rent Magnal detains a quantity of Water proportioned unto it self which is rent upwards as well in the Glasses as in the Clouds and doth preserve them from falling until through the compression perhaps of succeeding Atoms as it comes to pass in distillation the former do grow together into drops and do enclose the former Magnal or vital Being within themselves Or the same Magnal of the Water being rarified through Heat and being straightway after condensed through help of External Cold doth constrain and restrain those same its own Atoms of small Drops within the Limits of its command I return unto thee Stagyrian Aristotle If Air be co-thickned into Water seeing thou teachest Air more to excell in Moisture than Water I pray thee why shall Cold which is natural to the Air change the Nature of the Air into a matter which is too moist of its own Nature In the next place now Cold and no longer Heat shall possess the vital Principle of Generation Wherefore although a Vapour be Air generated of Water formally transchanged and of the same again alike water doth grow together Now thou differest from thy own self who admittest of so frequent and easie a return from a privation unto a habit At length take thou also this handicraft Experiment Air may
thing doth it not assume the same thickness of water even by reason of cold For so they had at least spoken something likely to be true Give heed therefore whosoever thou art that endeavourest by healing to work out the salvation of thy Soul what a Patron the Schooles do hitherto defend By what counsel have they made the Elements Complexions and degrees of qualities the foundation of healing who being seduced not but by a sleepy credulity have yielded the number essence use properties fruits and passions of the Elements and their own names to heathenish blindness Behold how slavishly the Schooles have borrowed their Elementary qualities and would have them be obedient at the pleasures of Dreams they have coupled increased blunted or repressed and divided them they have even sent abroad as it were wan devises for the causes of natural things knowings of Diseases healings and destructions of the Temples of the holy Spirit Therefore the air water and earth are cold by Creation because without light heat and the partaking of life Heat therefore is a stranger to them external to the Elementary Root But the air and earth are by themselves dry the water onely is moyst These are the qualities of those Bodies which none may vary as it listeth him But the air hath emptinesses as in its place else where whereby it drinks up and withholds vapours This is the state order Complexion of the Elements And which belongs not to the profession of Medicine unless by the way And so I will shew that in the Schooles that which least belongeth hath been very much searched into as if it were of the greatest moment and that which is of the greatest moment hath been hitherto neglected Because the whole pains of Physitians hath given place to mockeries and unprofitable brawlings Therefore if the Elements do not enter into mixt Bodies vain is the Doctrine of the Schooles touching the number composition temperaments concerning the contrariety proportion strife and degree of Elements for degrees are bound to the Seedes of simple Bodies not to an Element They are vain trifles whether the forms of the Elements do remain in the thing mixt because they are those things which are not in it as an Element it never ceaseth from that which it once began to be except the water to wit when being espoused to the Seeds it departs into a Body which hath hitherto been believed to be mixt Vain therefore is their fight interchangeable course Victory and that hence every Disease dissolution ruine healing and restoring doth depend Vain also is the method which is framed by contraries fetched from hence For the Schooles being by degrees guilty of those ill patched lies however they may a long time prate concerning Complexions at length they fail and being contented with feigned humours they scarce any more do debate concerning the fight of the Elements except in the six things besides nature and the frivolous Commands of Diet. 1. The Air and Water are Bodies not to be changed into each other The Demonstration The air which is in A being made thin by the heat of that which encompasseth it increaseth by the increase of dimensions and therefore it takes up more room than before Which thing notwithstanding cannot be unless it drives the Liquor B. C. into C. E. otherwise a poriness or fulness of little holes of the Vessel should be admitted or a Rupture of A. Which contradicteth the supposition of Heer and successively the air which was in C. E. into the Vessel D. But D. cannot receive that air unless it drive away so much air through the hole of the Pipe F. The Conclusion Therefore without the opening in F. the Liquor B. C. had not been moved from its place Therefore it is no wonder that the Liquor of Vitrioll hath by little and little exhaled of its own accord through the necessary opening in F. Therefore the stupidity or dulness of N. is laid open to whom when I had given many Instruments of like sort yet he had never observed the opening in F. Yea although I had plainly shewen these things to him many being present before that he had set forth his ridiculous fable against me yet he feigned afterwards that he wondred Because that Liquor had perished by degrees He saith that he found the whole Vessel most perfectly shut for neither doth that which is not exactly shut deserve to be called shut yet he grants that a motion of the Liquor was made which had shewen the temperature of the air And that the Liquor was changed into air the Glasse being shut Therefore false observations being supposed I will discover his misfortunes It being granted that the Vessel D. is as equally shut as is the Vessel A according to his supposition The thing required we must demonstrate That the water B. C. cannot be moved Likewise that it cannot teach the temperature of the air also that it could not be dried up or exhale Likewise that it could not be turned into air The preparing of an absurdity For if he admitteth of the motion and dryness of the water he ought to admit absurdities and contradictories or to confess his errours The preparing of the demonstration Let some heat be applied to the Vessel A. exceeding the temperature of the air encompassing for then the air included will enlarge it self according to the more or lesse heat and according to and as it exceedeth the true temperature of the air shut up in the Vessel D. against which it driving forward the water B. C. it shall destroy the equall tenour through too much action So that the air shall be pressed together and co-thickned by restraint that it may yield to the enlargement made in A. The Demonstration Therefore according to the supposition of Heer that air pressed together is turned into water the Liquor had never failed in the Vessel Yet his own observation will have it that the Glasse being on every side exactly shut the water was nevertheless dried up and made air But he cannot admit of dryness in a Glasse exactly shut unless his own supposition be destroyed to wit that air pressed together is changed into water neither again can that supposition subsist unless he shall admit of the continuance of the Liquor which notwithstanding doth contradict his own observation Likewise he cannot admit of the moving of the Liquor B. C. unless he shall grant the Glasse to be opened in F and by consequence he confesseth he hath erred in his observation And which thing although by the force of demonstrations he was constrained to confess before that he vomited forth his Apologie with all kinde of reproaches against me yet he hath persisted therein to discover his own ignorances The Conclusion Therefore it must needes be if the water B. C. be moved through some temperature of the air that both the Vessels A and D are not shut For else the Instrument should not be convenient for measuring of the temperature of
the air which is contrary to his supposition for seeing the air is of the same heat about A and about D the Liquor B C shall also necessarily take rest Because the quality of the air which encompasseth is the moving cause of the water B. C. acting with an equall strength and giving an equall tenour Now through the supposition of that which is false I will demonstrate what may follow upon his ignorance Let I say the water B. C. according to his observation be changed into air In the first place this observation cannot be admitted without rarefying caused by heat Nor can that rarefying be granted without an increase of place beside the heat And the increase of place cannot subsist without the enlarging or breaking of the Vessel Because he confesseth the Glasse to be exactly shut with a continuation of the Glasse without ruine or poriness 2. A transchanging of the water into air cannot be granted without co-thickning and restraining and restraint is not given without the addition of parts by pressing together actually within the same space or magnitude Which ought altogether to be named a condensing of the air which in this place cannot be made but by cold alone which supposeth the air to turn into water therefore not the water into air Since therefore neither heat nor cold can turn water into air much lesse shall that which is temperate do that For that this doth not beget an alteration in those Elements Likewise air is not turned into water because this conversion cannot be admitted being made by rarefaction because the rarefying of the air doth not happen in this place without the mediation of heat But Heer will have it that the air is co-thickned into water by cold Therefore water shall not be generated of air by heat 2. That transchanging of air into water cannot be admitted but by condensing and restraining which cannot happen in a Glasse perfectly shut but by cold Which agent upon the air being shut up within A and D should change it into water according to the supposition of Heer For so water had been increased by generation in Vessels perfectly shut Which contradicteth his own words This pretious Liquor perished it is no more it hath ceased to be and that indeed in the raging winter Therefore since neither heat nor cold can co-thicken air into water much lesse shall that do it which is temperate Therefore never It is a wonder therefore why it hath not hindered the drying up of the Liquor in Vessels Since according to his own prattle those should be onely buried under the Snow that they might be filled with water Now there shall not hereafter be need of rain if the Cave being perfectly shut and cold continual Cisterns should be made And likewise when the water should over-weigh the air that water shall fall into the bottom of a great Vessel very closely shut from whence as oft as one would list the water should be drawn out And so that Vessel should be changed into a winter Fountain For as Heer saith The Vessel was very closely shut it wanted little holes neither had it need of opening as well for the entrance as the transpiration of the air But if a new air might afterwards enter the same way and by the same meanes whereby the water that was changed into air the Glasse being shut flew out Hereafter therefore sweet water shall not be wanting to Marriners in a Ship if by the cold of the night the air growes together by drops into water Venice and Antwerp shall frame Fountains in the belly of a Brasse Cock which in the Pinacle of the Temple sheweth the windes For by the night-night-cold the air shall weep being turned into water And although the Pipe be moyst to those that play on Flutes that is not from the air Otherwise Organ-Pipes also should be moyst within which is false For the air utters the sound or tune and the salt vapour drops water out of the Pipe They having pressed air of one ell together in a gun to the space of 14 fingers even in the cold of winter and so far is it that the air so pressed together in excelling cold was changed into water that it cast out a leaden Bullet thorow an Oken Plank more strongly than a hand-Gun or Pistollet Now I will proceed to prove that thing by positive Reasons Because an applied esteem or thinking hath on every side overshadowed the Schooles with a manifold absurdity CHAP. XI The Essay of a Meteor 1. A vapour raised from the heat of water differs from that which is made by cold 2. That Air is not made of water 3. That air can neither by art or nature be brought into water 4. That the Air doth not subsist without an actuall vacuum or emptiness 5. It is proved by Handicraft operation that the subtilizing or rarefying of Art however exact or fine it be is nothing but a sifting 6. By handy operation the same thing is shewen in the sifting or making of leaf-Gold 7. The water is examined by three proportionable things and the Doctrine of necessity in the highest degrees of cold of the middle Region of the Air is delivered 8. The likeness of Mercury with water 9. The nature of Mercury 10. The rashness of antient Chymists concerning Mercury 11. That earth and water are never made one thing by any co-mixture 12. How art exceedes nature 13. The Earth is properly the fruit of the two primary Elements 14. A neere Reason of an uncapacity in Mercury of being destroyed 15. Aquae fortesses do not operate upon the Center of Mercury 16. Nor the Spirit of Sea-salt upon the body of it 17. The inward Sulphur of Mercury 18. How water may give a weight more weighty than it self 19. After what manner there is an ordinary piercing of Bodies in the way of nature 20. In the way of nature there are not the three first things although in its own simpleness there is a conceivable difference of kinde which is to receive the Seedes 21. Smoak is meer water 22. Why Clouds do stink 23. What the Dew is 24. What a mist is 25. Wherefore it behooved the Air in the middle Region of the Air to be cold 26. In this cold all seeds seperated by Atomes or Motes do die and therefore the water returns into the simplicity of its own Element but in Earth and Water if things are spoiled of their seed they do not return unto that simplicity but do conceive a new seed 27. By Handicraft operation the errour of Paracelsus is laid open 28. The errour of the Galenists about the savours of things Elementated 29. What the Gas of the water is 30. The unconstancy of Paracelsus concerning the seperation of Elements from Elements IT is already sufficiently manifest that the water by the force of heat is lifted up in manner of a vapour which vapour nevertheless is nothing but water made thin and remains as before and therefore being
retorted or struck back by an Alembick it returns into its antient weight of water Yet it may be doubted whether water consumed by the cold of the air is not changed into the nature and properties of air Because after the floud the Almighty sent the windes that they might dry the face of the Earth And even unto this day water is sooner supt up under the most cold North than in Summer heats Also a Fountain falling into a place or Vessel of Stone or Marble under the most chilled cold with a continuall Gulf the motion of the steep falling Fountain hinders indeed the water from congealing yet a certain vapour is seen to ascend which being straightway invisible is snatched away in the Air. That which is presupposed is that the every way nature of air is at least consumed by cold if not by heat First of all I answer that absurdity being granted the Schooles in the first place have not any thing for themselves from thence that therefore the air by it self should be moyst so far is it that the air as they determine should be far moyster than the water Because it is at least water dried up For that which is transchanged doth alwayes loose the properties which it had in the terme or bound from which and borroweth the qualities of the thing transchanging For however either the whole air was sometimes water or that onely should be moyst which was born of water but the other first-born air should be dry from its Creation And so there should be two aires essentially different But that the air in its own purity is dry by an inward property it appeares from the objection of the aforesaid cold because if the air from its Root were moyst windes had not been sent to dry the Earth But if indeed through the windes the waters of the floud were truly changed into air there should be much more air after the floud than before Consequently either some part of the World had been empty or certainly now by reason of a pressing together and thickning caused by a new air of so great an heap we should be choaked which thing shall hereafter be manifested by the handicraft operation of a Candle or an equall part of air ought successively to had been annihilated or brought to nothing under the generation of so great a new air For the Text will have it that so deep waters and the whole superficies of the Earth also was dryed by the windes Or if before the floud the waters had been air in the floud-gates of Heaven in like manner therefore in the whole floud there had been an emptiness in those floud-gates of Heaven to wit if the water be thicker and more condensed by a hundred fold at least than the air Therefore I lay it down for a position That the water doth never perish indeed not through cold or that it can be changed by any endeavours of nature or art and likewise that the air in no ages or by no dispositions not so much as in one onely small drop can be reduced into water For the water doth not endure an emptiness as neither the co-pressing of it self in being pressed together by any moover Onely it is pressed together in a seminall in-thickning through a formal transchanging of it self But on the contrary the air cannot subsist without a Vacuum or emptiness which thing I will prove in its Chapter and therefore it suffers an enlarging and straightning of it self Therefore there are two stable Elements differing in nature and properties among themselves because it is impossible for them to be changed into each other I confess indeed that out of the Stone-Vessel of a Fountain a watery exhalation doth ascend like a mist from the smallest Atomes of the water which exhalation although departing but a little from thence it be made altogether invisible it doth not therefore corrupt the Doctrine delivered For truly of one equall agent there is one onely and equall action Wherefore if cold doth first change the water into an icy exhalation the same cold cannot afterwards have another action upon that exhalation than of more extenuating and dispersing the same so as that through its fineness it may soon be made invisible And afterwards may be made more and more fine For neither could the hundredth extenuation of the same exhalation more transchange the water than the first Because it is an Element and Body impossible by its appointment to be reduced into a greater simplicity since subtilizing made by the division of parts is nothing but a certain simple shifting For example Beat Gold into Plates and then into the thinnest leaves but thence into the Gold of Painters straightway again make it smooth or plain in a Marble Morter And then with minium or red Lead and Salt bring it into an impalpable or exceeding fine Powder seperate the minium by the fire and wash away the Salt with water and repeat or renew it often as thou listest At length also with Sal armoniac Stibium and Mercurie Sublimate drive it through a retort and renew that seven times that the whole Gold may be brought into the form of a flitting Oil of a light red colour For it is a very smooth yea and a hard sound that which may be hammered and a most fixed Body which now seemeth to be turned into the nature of an Oil. But truly that dissembled Liquor is easily reduced into its former weight and body of Gold What if therefore Gold doth not change its antient nature by so many manglings nor doth by any meanes loose its own seed much lesse doth water a thing appointed for a simple Element by the Lord of things for the upholding of the Universe Although water should be potent in the three divulged Beginnings and should truly consist in Salt Sulphur and Mercurie mingled together yet it suffers no seperation of the same things by reason of the most exquisite simpleness of its nature and the most firm continuance of its constancy For Bodies when they are made subtile or fine to the utmost that they could be no more fine if they should continue in making them fine at length they depart into another substance with a retaining of their seminall properties And in this respect the Alkahest of Paracelsus by piercing all Bodies of nature transchangeth them by making them subtile Which happens not in the Elements Water and Air because by reason of their highest simplicity and priority of their appointment they refuse to passe or to be transchanged into any thing that is before or more simple than themselves Therefore when exhalations being gotten with child by the odours or smells and seeds of compound Bodies are translated from the lower parts to the middle Region of the air there through the most subtile dividing of the vapours by cold as much as is possible for nature to do they are reduced indeed into their most simple and primitive purity of Elementary water but in
that last sub-division of their finenesses and Atomes all Seeds Odours and Ferments which they lifted upward with themselves do dye together and do return into their first Element of water whence they were materially formed Hence Clowdes as long as they are Clowdes do stink in Mountains but not after they are by the greatest colds there extenuated into the last division of fineness And this necessity hath been in nature that the middle Region of the air should not far of from us be most cold For therefore the water alwayes remains whole as it is or without any dividing of the three beginnings it is transformed and goes into fruits whither the Seedes do call and withdraw it Because an artificial diligent search hath shewen me indeed after what sort the three first beginnings and that in a proportionable sense are in the water yet by no art or corruption of dayes are they to be divided from each other For an Element should cease to be a simple body if it be to be seperated into any thing before or more simple than it self But nothing in corporeall things is granted to be before or more simple than an Element The water therefore is most like to the internall Mercurie of Mettalls the which seeing it is now stript of all manner of spot of Mettalick Sulfur it as well cleaves to it self on every side by an undissolvable joyning as it doth radically refuse all possible division by art or nature Hence Geber had occasion given him to say that there is no moysture in the order or course of things like to Mercury by reason of the Homogeneall or samely kinde of simplicity continually remaining with it in the torment of the fire For truly either it being wholly changed in its own nature flees away from the fire or it wholly perseveres in the fire through the transchanging of its seedes I confess indeed that I learned the nature of the Element of water no otherwise than under the Ferule or Staffe made of the white wand of Mercury But since I have from hence with great pains and cost thorowly searched for thirty whole years and I have found out the adequate or suitable Mercurie of the water I will therefore endeavour to explain its nature so far as the present speech requireth and the slenderness of my judgement suffereth First of all the Alchymists do confess that the substance of Mercurie is not at all capable to endure any intrinsecall or inward division and they shew the cause because by a homogeneall and sweet proportion its watery parts are by an equall tempering conjoyned to its earthly parts the aiery and fiery ones being suppressed in silence for that these should flee away if they were in it neither do they contain the cause of constancy here required and therefore that both these cannot forsake each other by reason of their just temperature they embracing each other though against the fires will In the first place the errour of the auntients hath deluded them concerning the necessary confluence of four Elements into the mixture of mixt bodies But surely that errour was not to be indulged by Alchymists because they are those who durst not enforce or comprise the air and fire of Mercurie when as they treated of its constancy And then because it was very easie for them to experience that the water after what manner soever either by art or natural proportion it was married to the Earth yet that it never obtains a constancy in the fire as neither to be at any time truly radically joyned to the Earth Because water after what manner soever it be co-mixed with Earth ceaseth not to be water For neither shall manner or proportion ever make water to degenerate from its own essence as neither shall any conjoyning of it with Earth be able to procure that thing But water remaining water is born alwayes to flee away from the fire Surely it is a ridiculous thing that the water should rather love a proportioned weight of Earth than an unequall one and that for that loves sake it should against its will the rather forsake that temperament of Earth For truly when the speech is concerning the co-mingling of four Elements it is understood of pure Elements and those plainly unmixed together and so not defiled with any spot of mixture or otherwise prevented by any disposition For neither doth the water carry a ballance with it nor beares a respect as to weigh the Earth that is to be co-mixed with it that it may be the more toughly conjoyned to the same I greatly admire that the wan errour of the co-mixing of Elements being received hath brought forth such soâtish absurdities among all the Schooles and that they by that absurdity alone have locked the gate of finding out of Sciences and Cauâ Mercurie doth not indeed admit into it or contain so mâch as the least of earth ãâã is alwayes the Son of water alone Yea earth and water can never be compelled into any naturall body or be subdued into an identity or sameliness of forme by whatever skill that thing be attempted For Tâles or Bricks if from moyst Earth they are boiled into a shelly stone they do not receive water but for the guidance of the Clay but earth hath a seed in its own Salt whence the Clay becomes stony through the coction of Glasse-making Therefore of the water and earth there is onely a powring on and applying of parts but not an admixture of growing together For whatsoever is meet to depart into a compounded Body and of divers things to be converted into this something this must needes be done by the endeavour of the working Spirits and so far of those things that do contain them as they do promote the matter by transchanging it into a new generation But the Elements are Bodies but not spirits and much lesse do they also act into each other The Earth therefore ought first to loose its Being and be reduced into a juyce before it should marry the water that by embracing this water gotten with childe by the seed it might bring it over into the fruit ordained for the conceived seed But what agent should that be which should transport the earth into a juyce and not rather into water since the earth being a simple body should be changed into nothing but into a simple body its neighbour Surely another co-like Element should not cause that seeing nothing of like sort hath been hitherto seen to agree with the water or air Nor at length should the earth intend the corruption of it self since this resisteth the constancy of Creation Therefore although part of the earth may be homogeneally or by way of simplicity of kinde reduced into water by art yet by nature onely I deny that thing to be done seeing that in nature an agent is wanting by which agent alone onely mediating the Virgin-earth or true earth is reduced into Salt and from thence into water Let it be for
how an exhalation may by its lightness make so great a heap of Earth and of huge weight to stumble sooner then to consult of coagulating And upon every event there should not be room but for one elevation of the Earth and one onely settling of the same after some gaping chap is found but not of stirring up a quaking trembling But let these Dreams be in watery places Meadows Clayie places pooles the Sea Rivers c. Therefore the absurdities which I granted before in jest I will now oppose in earnest First of all I demand what is that so unwonted heat which from the year 1580 even unto the year 1640 was not seen at Mecheline as neither an Earth-quake wherefore not every year wherefore in the 2d moneth called April under a most cold night when as the day before it had snowed much under the continuall North Winde and not under the Dog-Star Is it because the more inward parts of the Earth are then hot Why therefore not every year in the eleventh moneth called January But this Argument of the Antients ceaseth after that the Instrument meating out the Degrees of the encompassing Air is found For Wells and Caves are found all the year of an equall heat and cold Again why doth so great heat the stirrer up of exhalations cease so suddenly especially where it may stir up an exhalation the moover of so great an heap by what fewell it is kindled under the water by what Fodder doth it live and subsist by what Law is it not in the same place stifâed by what priviledge doth it despise the respects of bodies places and weights at length by what Prerogative doth it stir up an exhalation of so great a vastness out of moyst Bodies without moyst vapours or if it doth also allure or draw out vapours after the ordinary manner why do not these mitigate a heat of so great moment do they extinguish do they choak together with their Sisters and forthwith following exhalations or what is that exhalation which shaketh the vast Tower of Mecheline with no greater respect than a low Cottage nor that respecteth any resistance of a huge weight or which doth in a like manner operate near at hand as at a distance or which doth at once every where and alike finde throughout its whole Superficies the collected power of its own Center that at once every where alike it may operate in one moment equally and alike strongly Why through the necessity of naturall causes is not the thred broken in the weaker part but all things do at once undergoe yea and sustain the same law of violence Surely if these things be rightly considered there is found in the Earth-quake a certain operative force of an infinite power which lifts up Mountains and Towers without respect of lightness or weight as if nothing were able to resist this moving virtue But I have proved that an exhalation if in any there be an efficient moving cause of an Earth-quake is neither of the race of Salts nor of Sulphurs as neither of Mercuries because that this is not an exhalation but the vapour of the watery parts Therefore it remains that it is not an exhalation but Gas it self not an eflux of Bodies stirred up by heat but rather an effect remaining after the fire To wit the Gas of the flame of the fire alone or of the smoak sprung from this But neither of these exhalations also can be the effective cause of an Earth-quake Therefore if none of these exhalations be the mover of the Earth there shall be none at all since another is not found and by consequence it is a vain fiction of the Schooles which they will have themselves to be believed in in the Earth-quake But if indeed they thinking of an escape do say that they do not understand an exhalation raised up by heat not brought forth by dryness but an unnamed vapour constituted by its causes To wit like as Aristotle writeth that all Rockie Stones small stones Mineralls and likewise the Salt of the Sea Comets although a hundred fold bigger than the Globe of the Earth and all Windes do proceed from some irregular and un-explained exhalations distinguishing the Windes therein against the Air This I say is to be willing to doat with Aristotle and to remain ignorant of naturall Philosophy with the same Aristotle Lastly it is an impertinent thing for them to have cited Aristotle and by his authority to be willing to defend their errours Notwithstanding I will treat against the Schooles by reason that seeing they do publish themselves to be so rationall they may deliver up their weapons to reason I say therefore that no exhalation can be more light simple or subtile than the Air because this is the simple body of an Element but that is a composed body and so however it be it hath in it a weighty body which the Air wanteth Yet the Air is not lighter than a Body that is without weight that is the Air is not lighter than it self nor can it lift up any thing besides it self unless by the motion of a Flatus or blast or of flowing that is by a Blas Which ceasing the body which it lifted up setleth From whence I conclude that the Air or Winde whether it be shut up or free cannot lift up the Earth by reason of its lightness alone unless it be by chance stricken by an externall and violent Mover but in this case the force of the exhalation ceaseth seeing it is a constraining force which moveth but not the exhalation it self Because it is that which in such a case is onely the mean or Instrument of motion but not the chief motive force And much lesse is that agreeable to an exhalation because it is that which is thicker and weightier than the Air as it containeth water I prove it by Handicraft-operation A Bladder stretched out with Air springs up out of the water not primarily because the Air is lighter than water but because the water is a heavy and fluide body and therefore it suffers not it self to be driven out of its place by a lighter body For indeed it is the first endeavour of the water to joyn it self to the water from whence it was seperated its secondary endeavour or that as it were by accident is to presse out by its falling together whatsoever is lighter than it self Therefore weightiness not lightness doth operate in this thing for the reason straightway to be shewed Let a Bladder able to contain three pounds or pints of water be put in a small trench or ditch and let it be covered with Earth Truly it shall not shake off from it half an ounce of the dust poured upon it Yea neither shall the Bladder desire to appear out of the dry more weighty Sand. Let it therefore be ridiculous that a Bladder weighing half an ounce doth ever from any lightness of Air of its own accord fly up into the Air. If therefore
water nor yet are fixed do necessarily belch forth a wild spirit or breath Suppose thou that of 62 pounds of Oaken coal one pound of ashes is composed Therefore the 61 remaining pounds are the wild spirit which also being fired cannot depart the Vessel being shut I call this Spirit unknown hitherto by the new name of Gas which can neither be constrained by Vessels nor reduced into a visible body unless the seed being first extinguished But Bodies do contain this Spirit and do sometimes wholly depart into such a Spirit not indeed because it is actually in those very bodies for truly it could not be detained yea the whole composed body should flie away at once but it is a Spirit grown together coagulated after the manner of a body and is stirred up by an attained ferment as in Wine the juyce of unripe Grapes bread hydromel or water and Honey c. Or by a strange addition as I shall sometime shew concerning Sal Armoniack or at length by some alterative disposition such as is roasting in respect of an Apple For the Grape is kept and dried being unhurt but its skin being once burst and wounded it straightway conceiveth a ferment of boyling up and from hence the beginning of a transmutation Therefore the Wines of Grapes Apples berries Honey and likewise flowers and leaves being pounced a ferment being snatched to them they begin to boyl and be hot whence ariseth a Gas but from Raysins bruised and used for want of a ferment a Gas is not presently granted The Gas of Wines if it be constrained by much force within Hogs-heads makes Wines âurious mute and hurtfull Wherefore also the Graâe being abundantly eaten hath many times brought forth a diseasie Gas For truly the spirit of the ferment is much disturbed and seeing it is disobedient to our digestion it associates it selfe to the vitall spirit by force yea if any thing be prepared to be expelled in manner of a Sweat that thing through the stubborn sharpness or soureness of the ferment waxeth clotty and brings forth notable troubles torments or wringings of the bowels Fluxes and the Bloudy-flux I being sometimes in my young beginnings deluded by the authority of ignorant writers have believed the Gas of Grapes to be the spirit of Wine in new Wine But vain tryalls have taught me that the Gas of Grapes and new Wine are in the way to Wine but not the spirit of Wine For the juyce of Grapes differs from Wine no otherwise than the pulse of water and meal do from Ale or Beer For a fermentall disposition coming between both disposeth the fore-going matter into the transmutation of it self that thereby another Being may be made For truly I will at sometims teach that every formall transmutation doth presuppose a corruptive ferment Other more refined Writers have thought that Gas is a winde or air inclosed in things which had flowen unto that generation for an Elementary co-mixture And so Paracelsus supposed that the air doth invisibly lurk under the three other Elements in every body but in time onely that the Air is visible but his own unconstancy reproveth himself because seeing that he sheweth in many places else-where that bodies are mixed of the three first things but that the Elements are not Bodies but the meer wombs ' of things But he observed not a two-fold Sulphur in Tin and therefore is it lighter than other Mettalls whereof one onely is co-agulable by reason of the strange or forreign property of its Salt whereby Jupiter or Tin maketh every Mettall frangible or capable of breaking and brickle it being but a little defiled with its odour onely but that the other Sulphur is Oily For Gun-powder doth the most neerly express the History of Gas For it consisteth of Salt-peter which they rashly think to be the Nitre of the Antients and the which is at this day plentifully brought to us being dried up from the inundation of Nilus of Sulphur and a Coal because they being joyned if they are enflamed there is not a Vessel in nature which being close shut up doth not burst by reason of the Gas For if the Coal be kindled the Vessel being shut nothing of it perisheth but Sulphur if the Glasse being shut it be sublimed wholly ascends from the bottom without the changing of its Species or kinde Salt-peter also being melted in a shut Vessel as to one part of it gives a sharp Liquor that is watery but as to the other part it is changed into a fixed Alcali Therefore fire sends forth an Air or rather a Gas out of all of them singly which else if the air were within it would âend forth from the three things being connexed Therefore those things being applied together do mutually convert themselves into Gas through destruction But there is that un-sufferance of Sulphur and Salt-peter not indeed by the wedlock of cold with hot as of powerfull qualities as is believed but by reason of the un-cosufferable âlowing of boyling Oil and Wine no lesse than of water or of Copper and Tin being melted with Wine For in so great heat when they co-touch each other throughout their least parts they are either turned into a Gas or do leap asunder For so Lead being roasted with Mercury and Sulphur departeth into a sudden flame a small lee or dreg being left almost of no weight yet enlarged to the extension of the Lead VVherefore if the Gas were air all the Gun-powder should be air and the Lead it self should be wholly air But it is not possible for the fire to produce out of the same Elementary fruit sometimes air sometimes water with an ultimate reducement unlesse the fire loose also its uniformity of working that was planted in it by the Creator In the next place it is already above sufficiently manifested that air and water can never be brought over into each other Therefore if Gun-powder or Salt-peter may observably be reduced into an Elementary water by fire or any other mean whatsoever a transmutation thereof into air is not possible to be But some thousands of pounds of Gun-powder being at some time enflamed at once have not yielded any thing but an inflamed Gas which hath growen together in the Clouds and at length returning into water Furthermore a Coal is reduced in some Fountains into a Rockie stone Likewise I have known the meanes whereby the whole of Salt-peter is turned into an Earth and the whole of Sulphur being once dissolved may be fixed into an Earthly Powder What if therefore these three Earths should contain three or four Elements at leastwise the Earth should occupie the greatest part nor that reducible into its former Gas neither is it consonant to Reason that a Body which wholly flies away into an aiery Gas should be converted into Air or into Earth as man listeth Next seeing the three aforesaid Powders are at length made water under the Artificer which afterwards cannot any more through humane cunning return into
have taught That qualities are and do operate in the Elements without respect to contrariety But now I descend unto a Systeme or collection of things First of all Oneness or a Unite is not contrary to a Binary or that which is twofold although they go back divided by interchangeable courses Likewise neither are upwards and downwards East and West contraries but oppositions of Scituations which do vary through respects And so that which is above in respect of another thing is beneath neither therefore is the right eare contrary to the left although opposite For neither do I speak of contradictory terms which do only contradict in a Relative respect but have not hostile Properties in things Neither also is my speech concerning privative things Yea neither do I deny contraries in the wrathfull power but I constantly affirm onely this one thing alone That God hath not made contraries in nature which by hostility may kill and set upon each other Or I deny contrary properties in natural things That is I deny positive and reall contraries to be in the order of natural actions For vertue hath it selfe opposite to vice from the disposition of the thing depriving Neither also is a flying creature contrary to a creeping one for the same Silk-worm is both Neither is generation it self contrary to corruption but there is one only flowing of the Seeds from point to point by wearying withdrawing losing or extinguishing the strength or faculties Likewise neither is great contrary too little nor straight too crooked Seeing one and the same thing may sometimes be small sometimes great strait and crooked Let the same judgement be of sweet and bitter hard and soft rough and smooth heavy and light sharp and blunt coagulated and resolved or of white and black For all the powers of things are in themselves absolute neither do they respect others that are diverse from them Because every thing is even as it existeth by it selfe But for that they are opposed by us even as if they did disagree among themselves that is unknown to things and plainly by accident or forreign unto them In the mean time a Hatchet doth not cut wood or a Knife cut bread by reason of contrarieties or hostilities but every property acteth without reflexion on an opposite one that which it is commanded to act It is a foolish thing to will things to be contrary wherein there is no pretence of hatred disagreement victory or superiority And therefore neither is there any intention of contrariety in nature Therefore every thing acteth even as it is commanded to act For within an egg-shell a war of contrariety is not inclosed although the Seed may flow through various successive alterations of dispositions far unlike from each other a Unity and concord of nature is on every side kept which is no where contrary to it self yea it abhorreth every contrary and whatsoever disturbeth unity For indeed there is in the Seed a transchanging of the water existing in the earth of a Garden and so that one onely water passeth into a thousand hot sharp bitter sour and cold Herbs For not because any Seed is contrary to the juice or water in the earth or that another sharp simple doth envy a sharp one that is neighbour to him which doth lesse answer to him in the resembling mark of unity far be it For they proceed indifferently from the vitall Beginning of their own Seeds wherein hostile contraries are not entertained For accidents seeing they are the dispositions of Seeds or of absolute Beings in themselves not of Relative ones and therefore ignorant of contrarieties they follow also the guidance of their own Seeds whose instruments and products they are Therefore the Table of repugnant things admits of contraties onely in the sensitive and wrathfull power of free Agents Secondly It admits of privative things Thirdly Last of all of those things which do contradict in Relative terms Since therefore there are not things absolutely contrary in nature how carelesly it hath hitherto been proceeded in the fictions of Complexions and healings of the sick they shall see whom the mournings of Widows and Orphans shall one day accuse to wit That for one only sluggishnesse they have rashly subscribed to stupid heathenish Doctrines And so that indeed they have not hitherto so much as known the definition of nature which I thus define Nature is that command of God whereby a thing is that which it is and doth what it is commanded to do But that fitly because the Schools reject their own Theorems or Speculations And do seem to set their Speculative Art to sale the which as oft as they please they do not follow For in the Plague and Malignant Feavers they give Triacle and other things not obscurely hot as also medicines causing sweat to drink the indication or shewing token of heat being neglected Also an Erisipelas the most fiery of Apostems as they say they cure by applying of the best Aqua vitae Lastly If nature the Physitianesse of her self can overcome diseases by her own goodnesse but not by a fighting quality Let them shew I pray what kind of cold it may be in a Feverish body which may slay the heat of the same Disease at set hours And moreover if nature be her own Phyfitiannesse what necessity is there I pray that the disease should be bounded by a Crisis or judiciall period where there is no strife nor disease cited heard or admitted for judgement Where the Patient in the Beginning is more able to strive than himself being brought nigh a recovery of his health To wit After many labours pains fastings watchings and evacuations So now he of necessity ought rather to faint for feebleness than to overcome strife and to conquer his enemy by his own power Yea if any strength had been known to have been in the entrance of the Disease plainly it ought to have been judged in the Beginning when as he had a judge and witnesses in his behalfe and an equall cause against the Trayterous disease At least it is an unjust thing and worthy of loud laughter that the Judge himself be a party in the Crisis Let sports depart in serious matters For if Nature be ignorant of contraries as I have shewn surely these could not fight in us and least of all so long as the creature stands in need of help or ease and the disease was present For truly our nature doth alwayes work a univocal or single thing whether it resolveth coagulated things or at length coagulateth resolved things For it doth no otherwise than as Gold-finers powder which giveth a hardnesse to Lead a difficult melting to Quick-silver and Tinne both which qualities it taketh away from Iron Not indeed Because that powder is contrary to it self and to Metalls which it perfecteth in working and adds to these what is wanting to themselves to wit That one only powder doth afford to every one of them their own and far diverse
use of the Pulses and another of breathing and âââther for heat only For in the most sharp and hot diseases to wit as oft as there is the greatest breathing drawn and that like a sigh the Pulse is small and swift also the strength remaining Therefore the use of breathing and the Pulse do not answer especially because we are more refreshed by a great draught of cold water abundantly drunk than if the same quantity be drunk at many times I say we are more refreshed by one only sigh than by many small and more frequent breathings Even so as a pair of Bellows doth perform more by a great and continual blast than by those that are lesse exact although many whence it may be sufficiently manifested to a well considerate and judicious man that there is another use of the Pulses of greater moment to wit That which respecteth the ferment of digestions Whence I repeat a handicraft operation to wit That at length under the last digestion all our Arterial bloud doth perish and exhale neither that it leaves any dreg behind it Yet whatsoever doth exhale by heat alone all that as well in living as in inanimate things doth leave a dreg behind it the skilfull do call this The dead Head which dreg being at length thus roasted doth resemble a Coale For the action of heat is of it self every where Simple Univocal and Homogeneal differing in the effect by reason of the Matter Therefore if the vitall bloud ought to be wholly so disposed in us that it be at length wholly blown away without a dead head it was altogether necessary that that should happen by some other Mean than that of heat But the aire was alwayes and from the beginning every where the seperater of the waters from the waters This hath not been known in the Schools to wit that the whole Venal bloud that it may depart into a Gas it hath need of two wings to fly the aire and a ferment Wherefore observe thou That as oft as any thing of bloud becomes unfit or is not by degrees disposed of and undergoes its degrees in the outward part of the body that it may wholly throughout the whole be made volatile and capable to flye away or thorow the poâes at the same moment now Scirthus's Nodes or Knots and Apostems are conceived but if that thing happen in the more inward part thereof for the most part Fevers Apoplexies Falling evills Asthma's likewise pains and deaths do soon follow Let us see therefore what the aire or what a ferment may conduce hereunto First of all Every muscilage of the earth which else is easily turned into worms likewise Starch Fleshes Fishes c. being once frozen at that very moment do lose their muckinesse and return into water As the aire was once very well combined to the Ice as I have sometimes spoken concerning the weight of Ice and so it is the first degree whereby the aire doth resolve a tough body into water And then under the greatest colds and purest aire we are more hungry yet we sweat and less is discussed out of us with a small and more hard siege or excrement Therefore one that saileth in the Sea eats more by double if not by treble unlesse he be sick and le ts go less excrement than himself doth living at Land whence is the Proverb The water causeth a promoting of digestion As if indeed he that saileth should not float in the aire but in the water but floating doth renew the aire in us and from hence there is a stronger digestion Therefore if we do eat more strongly and do cast forth less excrements it necessarily follows that the more is discussed or doth vanish out of the Body which is to say That the more pure Northern and Sea-aire doth conduce to a transpiration or evaporation of the body or doth dispose the bloud unto an insensible perspiration or breathing out of it self Surely for that cause is breathing made not indeed that the air may depart into nourishment for the vitall spirit but that it may be connexed with it being sucked to it thorow the Arterial Vein and Venal Artery of the Lungs and that the air being for this cause transported into the heart it may receive a ferment which accompanying it they both may dispose the venal blood into a totall transpiration of it self After another manner many things are made fixt and do resist a breathing forth if they are provoked by heat otherwise they were in themselves volatile Wherefore an Alcali is not generated in ashes by the fire essentially although effectively it proceed from thence For the office of the fire is indeed to kindle consume and seperate yet not to produce any thing Seeing the fire is not rich in a seed it is the very destroyer of seeds But from seeds all Generation proceedeth When therefore an Alcali is fixed out of a Salt that was before volatile it is not a new production of a thing but only the Alteration of a thing For the Alcali was indeed materially in the composed body before burning and did flow together with its Mercury and Sulphur Notwithstanding while the fire takes away the Mercury and Sulphur the Salt indeed as being a principle more subsisting in the melting of the combustion doth snatch to it self the neighbouring part of the Sulphur or Fat and when it is not able sufficiently to defend it from the torture of the fire it partly also flyes away under the mask of a Gas and attains the odour of corrupted matter and is partly incorporated in the laid-hold-of co-melted Sulphur and is made a true Coal Wherefore the Sulphur being now fixed by the wedlock of the Salt it doth not speedily incline from a Coal into a smoaky vapour But by degrees and not unlesse in an open Vessel and so with the former Sulphur for from hence the Sulphur of a thing being for the most part sharp doth retain the savour of a volatile Salt and at length with the Coalie Sulphur the just weight of its volatile Salt flies away Which thing surely is no where more manifest than in the Coal of Honey For if this be urged or forced by a shut vessel it remains not changed in a bright burning fire but the vessel being open both do so depart that moreover no remainder of ashes doth ever survive Therefore the Alcali Salt doth fore-exist materially in the composed body before combustion Because all the Salt was formally volatile in the composed body and not in the form of a more fixed Alcali which thing is now especially manifest in the bloud which being wholly volatile exhaleth unsensibly through the Pores without any residence But if it be combusted or burnt it leaveth very much fixed Salt in its own ashes In the next place The wood of the Pine-Tree which affordeth little ashes and less Salt in the preparation of ashes barrelled is by calcining wholly turned into an Alcali For barrelled ashes are brought
digestion which thing if it be rightly considered it will now plainly appear that a Cautery is not to be imprinted for the purging out of a malignant humour neither that a bad or evil humour doth exist but only for the diminishing of the abundance of Blood and so from a beholding of an exesse of a good humor only Whence it follows that it is not convenient for Young Folks not for those that are become lean again not for such as are brought low by any disease as neither for those that live orderly and least of all for religious abstashing Persons But they have not yet distinguished whether corrupt pus in an issue be only of the venal Blood or of one of the four feigned humours or indeed of a co-mixture of the four If the first should be true then the Pus should not be from an ill humour but from the best of the four humours and so an Issue shall be made void and the best Pus or the effect of an Issue shall be worst of all feeing it was not but the corruptive of the best of all But if they had rather devise to wit that the Blood is not at first evil but becomes evil while it is seperated from its other fellows At leastwise the three remaining ones shall in that severing be as yet more bad than the bloud and upon every event an Issue shall not be made but for an evil end that it might corrupt the good and guiltless Blood But if they will have the corrupt Pus to be made of the four humours being co-mixt then a Cautery errs in its end seeing a Cautery prevails not to purge out hurtful humours but to corrupt the good ones which are by nature not erring sent daily unto it self for Nourishment In the next place a Cautery shall not be to be reckoned as a preventing of a Catarrh or else the matter of a Catarrhe should not be a vapour nor also Phlegm but venal Blood it self which the Issue in it self corrupteth For corrupt pus is not made of Phlegm but only of venal Blood as hath been sufficiently instructed in the Schools Therefore by the essence of corrupt pus being well searched into in its matter efficient cause the ends of Cauteries the purgings out of Catarrhs and evil humours do cease For indeed any sumptom of wounds being taken away in Cauteries and a supposed health it must needs be that a loosing or seuering of that which held together doth produce snotty matter in the Issue and that that doth not flow from elsewhere but that it is generated in the part it self Also the Archeus daily dispenseth so much of the venal Blood to the parts proportionally as they have need of for their own nourishment Therefore the Pus or corrupt matter is venal Blood vitiated in that part wherein the Wound is and an effect of digestion vitiated in the same place Therefore to have vitiated the entireness continuation or holding together and digestion of the parts next to have converted the venal Blood into corrupt Snotty matter is reputed the very same thing in the Schools as to have gone to prevent Catarrhs or Rheums or thorow the hole of a Cautery to have extracted from the Head from whence they originally fetch all Rheums an excrementous humor which otherwise had threatned to fall down on a noble part whether in the mean time there be an agreement between the Head and the Wounded part or not for it is all one so the Skin be deteined Wounded whether that excrementous humour be Blood or be made snotty pus or liquid Sanies is all one so by the thred-bare words of Catarrhe prevention derivation revulsion and an Issue the world be circumvented For I behold a small Infant of a Year old now breeding Teeth and to suffer a Fever froath of the Mouth and Spittle without ceasing And aââength that there are wringings of the Bowels and Stools of Yellow-Green-coloured excrements At least that Tooth is a part of the Head wherefore the Flux shall be a Rheum of the Head But what consent is there of a Tooth about to break forth or a swollen Gum with a Bowel Or what power thereof is there of begetting or sending away that Catarrhe out of the Stomack of a little Infant unto his Head And from thence into the Ileos By what right shall a vapour dropped or stilled out of the Stomack be made Cankered Choler in the Head Hath perhaps the shop of Choler now wandred from the beginning of Life unto the Head Could a Cautery if an Infant were for undergoing it suck unto it a leeky Flux into it self And by a few small drops of corrupt matter recompence or Ballance the leeky Choler of some pounds Why doth the Stomack of a small Infant frame a Catarrhe by reason of the pain of his Tooth Why is it sent into a Bowell and not unto the paining Tooth Doth not the reader yet see that a Flux is not a Rheum But that the Archeus wheresoever yee will have it being enraged is ready in the Bowels to transchange the nourishable juyce into excrements which by the Schools are reckoned Choler Phlegme c. If therefore the Flux be not a Rheume and the Archeus being wroth can transchange any thing into a troublesom Liquor if the Gum be but afflicted shall not he be able on every side to unload himself by the appointed emunctories And not to wait for the Skin to be opened by a Caustick Alass hath cruel dullness caused the Schools to be cruel towards their mortal kinsfolks For neither do they consider that in Women and those that are somewhat fat or gross there is in the fleshly membrane about the ordinary places of a Cautery a meer grease to the thickness of two fingers at least for which persons notwithstanding the more frequent Cauteries and those the more profitable ones are perswaded wherefore also the bottom of the Issue shall scarce be in the middle of the grease therefore there is not a passage whereby the evil banished feigned humour of a Rheume may rush down out of the Brain or between the Scull and Skin thorow the middle of the fat But what is that solitary humour in the next place which for its offence being banished from the sending part descending thorow the Substance of the grease unmixed doth degenerate into corrupt Pus If it be an exhalation of vapours out of the Stomack why shall it not be more frequent to younger and hot Stomacks than to weak old and cold ones In what sort shall that water that droppeth out of a vapour put on the form of Snotty matter How shall it hasten thorow the Brain Coats and Scull to find a hole made by a Cautery that it may flow down thither only and be purged Why doth not the vapour fly first an hundred times into the Air before it reach to the place appointed it by the alluring Cautery How shall the Water which climbeth
perceived our own Country remedies to be in vain they promise that humors never seen named and bred are to be dryed up at least by barbarous remedies But why do they give these drinks to drink also in a dry consumption Is it not that they may dry up the defluxing and exorbitant ill juicy humor But let them first satisfie the question whether the thing be or not whether watery decoctions are for drying up And then let them teach that these drinks will not by a certain priveledge dry up the Blood as neither those Humors which they call secondary ones but the other three Dreamed ones only in the Blood or next only Phlegmatish excrements lastly that they will not vitiate the requisite composition in the Blood and the due proportion of the thing composed But if these sort of decoctions do only dry up slimy and sharp excrements at leastwise they shall increase the clots and knots by leaving a curd of harshness But if they do these things in Rheums why not in the Gowt Or if not in the Gowt why also not in Catarrhs If they do dry up Phlegm between the joints when they are given to drink for prevention of the Gowt how shall they not constrain Phlegm sliding in the Veins or in the passage between the Skin unto a Sand-stone and knots If tough Phlegm be dried up into the Sand-stones by decoctions shall they not increase hurt in those that are distempered in their Lungs And therefore are they wickedly prescribed and given to Drink If dry things do imbibe or drink up moisture at leastwise I do not see how moist things shall dry up especially where the Drink of that which is decocted doth alwaies remain Moist Lastly at leastwife a Catarrhy humor could not chuse but be an excrement But the Schools have not considered that excrementous things cannot be blown away as neither be dried up without a dead Head For I have elsewhere taught that drying up is only of heat and cold This whereof in an increased degree scarce Tolerable for living Creatures doth convert watery Bodies into a Gas but the other is not an Operative quality into a drying vapour as neither into Moisture but that the dry doth drink up the moist and on the other hand that the most doth moisten as it is imbibed But moisture is not dryed up by dryness but the moisture departing being supt up by heat or cold The Schools in defluxions do forbid hot things do forbid Wines do perswade Barley Broaths and so in the middle of the Waters sometimes moistening and sometimes drying up as they say they endeavour to dry up but they know not what in what manner and by what means because hitherto the Humor the Author of so great evils is an unnamed one I therefore have not known either the Motion or manner or means whereby these Drinks are able to dry up by a true drying up and much less hurtful excrements only and least of all can they perform those things which Physitians do promise Nature therefore despiseth these Dreams of Physitians and doth alwaies make and will alwaies make void their promises I beseech the most excellent God that he would pardon the offences or sins which we have contracted not by a stubborn ignorance but from humane frailty Yet I fear least that befall Physitians which doth other men among whom an ignorance of right or Law takes away or looseth the inheritance Last of all even as the Gowt is truly a primary or chief disease hence the knowing thereof depends on the knowledge of chief Diseases about the end whereof some things are recorded concerning the cure of the Gowt CHAP. LII A Raging or Mad Pleura 1. The Pleurisie of the Schools 2. The errors of the definition and forgetfulnesses of themselves 3. Some Dreamed assertions 4. Whether the weight of Phlegm falling down doth pull away the Pleura from the Ribs 5. Some more gross assertions 6. The Vain Azugos hath no regard unto the essence of a Pleurisie 7. The vain hope of revulsion and derivation 8. To what end Blood-letting may conduce in a Pleurisie 9. The Schools are deceived by Artificial things 10. Both causes of the Disease do remain in their own effects 11. Some rashnesses of Paracelsus 12. The carelesseness of the Schools 13. The consideration of the Author in a Pleurisie declared by an example 14. A contemplation of sharpness in the bounds of a Pleurisie 15. A Proofe 16. The vanity of bloud-letting 17. Things required in a Remedy 18. A sharpness is proved in the Pleurisie 19. How the Pleura may be pulled away from the Ribs 20. Whence an inflammation of the Lungs is 21. The Thorn being plucked out the place doth oft become thorny 22. From whence a Pleurisie is 23. Where the Kitchin of a Pleurisie is 24. The repentance of nature in a Pleurisie 25. The Antients have spoken something of a Husteron Proteron concerning the Pain of the Pleurisie 26. How the bloody Flux seperates it self from a Pleurisie 27. Wherein a Peripneumonia or inflammation of the Lungs and an Imposthume full of Corrupt Matter do differ from a Pleurisie 28. What a clyster can work in the bloody-Flux 29. The use of Ecligmaes are taken notice of 30. The Schools are every where buisie about the Cloakatived cure of Diseases 31. The cruel carelessness of Physitians 32. Remedies wrested in a Pleurisie 33. Notable absurdities about the Bloody-Flux 34. Why a Clyster is hurtful to a Bloody-Flux 35. Observations of the Author who had a Pleurisie 36. How a seasonable cutting of a Vein differs from that which is delayed THe Pleurisie is by the Schools numbred among defluxions or rheums they define it to be a bloody Aposteme wherein the Pleura or coat which girdeth the Ribs is plucked from the ribs with a continual Fever pain of the place And Aposteme is the general kind of the Disease defined and so those who always define a Disease to be a disposition and do place it among qualities do now think the product or effects of a Pleurisie which follow upon the placing of a defluxing rheum to be the Disease and do provide it a place among substances but they no longer place it among a distemper disposition and hurting of an action but they now affirm it to be a material product and Aposteme In the next place they leave it uncertain whether they may ascribe the Pleurisie to a Phlegm or salt Rheum or indeed to venal blood expelled thither But neither do they also explain in the least what that furious disposition may be which by its angry heat doth rent the Pleura from the Ribs Yet that animosity is in nature and motion before the defluxing rheum and the Catarrh before that pulling asunder and that divulsion goes before an Aposteme Therefore they define the effect also they think that a defluxing rheum doth by its weight of salt phlegm actually rent the Pleura from the Ribs Moreover the Schools omit
Catarrhes and deliver it from hand to hand unto each other that it may supply the room of Truth yea Idiots being made passive Physitians do declaim with me concerning their Catarrhes even unto a long tediousnesse or weariness Wherein indeed seeing it is hard and nauseous for me to learn all that are unaccustomed to pluck them out of their supposed doctrine and to bring in a true light of the Theorie Especially seeing the multitude are of that minde that like new hogsheads they do scarce lay aside their odour at first drawing Therefore I am wont to be silent for the most part among the great ones I plead not for a disease not for its causes not for its particular kindes not for its medicines I being silent as to that easie Theorie of the Schooles do seem ignorant of all things agreeing to depart from all Yet elsewhere I shew that I have been otherwise instructed but that Idiots are not capable of Medicine seeing neither am I their School-master I likewise admire daily that none hath hitherto taken notice of the so great ignorance of Physitians but that the Christian world hath drawn after it these dreames of the Greeks for a ridiculous lying worship or service and destructive to humane society Indeed they determine that the original fountain of Catarrhes is in a cold distemper of the stomack and a hot distemper of the liver and that the great part of infirm mortals are subject to this tyranny Forasmuch as the manner of making it is that the stomack being uncessantly in the time of concoction made hot by the liver cannot but alwaies send vapours to the head but that the brain is in its own nature cold and like a cover to a boyling pot or in stead of the hollow head of an Alembick whereinto vapours do ascend and are constrained into water The which seeing it ought naturally to flow down it suggests an ample and general matter for Catarrhes or Rheumes The which if it fall down into the eyes ears jaws teeth c. The parts do deservedly grieve that they have a neighbour brain and a superiour tyrant But if it rain down into the lungs they are transchanged into a cough shortwinded affects next into a consumption of the lungs beating of the heart and so also into suddain death But if indeed these Rheumes do rain down into the stomack now he paies the punishment of their fault by unconcoction crudities vomitings inordinate appetities stomack paines faintings obstructions fluxes caeliack passions cholers colicks consumptions for lack of nourishments dropsies scirrhus's and all defects of the belly yea fevers putrifyings in the veins also affects of the spleen stones of the reins and bladder do draw their beginnings from the muckiness of a Catarrh But if Catarrhs do derive themselves into the bosome of the Cerebellum or lesser brain now suddain death the apoplexie and palsies are at hand But if by the chance of Fortune Rheums do divert themselves thorow the nucha or marrow of the back-bone into the sinews arteries muscles divers joynt-sicknesses plurisies palsies and convulsions of the parts do presently happen And likewise they will have Rheums to beget Chyrurgial defects of pains apostems and the divers off-spring of ulcers But if they do not fall down and the brain doth ease it self of its burden by poses and coughs the drowsie evil the Coma or sleeping evil the Catochus or stiffe-taking disease the lethargie giddiness of the head apoplexie losse of memory and the sences are present For truly besides the aforesaid distempers of heat and cold and a Catarrhe of necessity bred from thence the Books Speeches Counsels Conversations Chairs and Practises of Physitians do re-sound nothing and so the whole hinge of healing is at this day conversant in purgings cuttings of a vein scarrifyings baths sweates cauteries and in summe not but in the diminishments of the body and strength or dryings up of Rheumes To wit to which end they have given the roots of China and Sarsaparilla from the utmost part of the East to drink together with the wood Sassaphras to dry up But they measure the Dietary and Medicinal part for the most part by the rule of heat and cold and by this meanes they never dismisse the Sick out of their hand but detain them for perpetual Clients as it were gotten bondslaves yet under a manifest dispaire To wit that the cure or healing would be impossible seeing the Physitians are ignorant of the Causes and Roots and do see themselves to operate in vain because the natural cold of the Stomack contradicts the heat of the Liver and so that those things which should profit the Stomack should hurt the Liver and on the contrary All which things seeing they conspire for the destruction of Mortals likewise the destruction of the Common-wealth and Families It hath been my part utterly to overthrow this execrable Heresie of the Doctrine of Medicine and I ought to have done it so much the more forcibly because that plague doth possesse all the mindes of the Europeans even from the daies of Galen The rich indeed learn this Doctrine for a proper reward of Learning and what they have learned they teach others So all Diseases sound as bred of Catarrhes or Rheumes I will therefore shew by Positions granted in the Schools 1. The Stomack of a man as long as he is alive is actually hot and its membrane or coat is besmeared with some moisture 2. But it is impossible for any watery moisture to be actually hot in us but that also for that very cause it stirreth up a Vapour from its self 3. The upper passage out of the Stomack is the Throat or Oesand a membrane extended like a Cane or Reed from the Stomack even unto the Jawes being like to the membrane of the Stomack 4. The Oesand by it self is actually wholly moist and it is shut seeing else it crookedly falls down by reason of a vacuum or emptiness actually and alwayes no otherwise then as a bladder which wanteth its proper Content the Throat therefore doth touch it self side-waies through a necessity of Nature which doth not suffer a vacuum For the Throat which hath not meats drink or air in it should of necessity be empty if it should lye open but that it doth not lie open or contain air is manifest from that because else every morsel being swallowed the air which should be beneath the same and should resist the suited gobbet should be thrust downwards to the Stomack and so there should be as many belchings as there are gobbets swallowed In the next place seeing the membrane of the Oesand is moist it should of necessity fall down on it self unless it were on every side extended by a certain force the which is neither presented to the view in dissections neither should it serve for any end in living creatures 5. The mouth of the Stomack is shut by a natural not by a voluntary motion 6. But there is no other
now made cold then afterwards hot that the whole Body may be cold and hot at the successive change thereof But they are the works and signatures of life not the properties of diseasie Seeds in the matter but meer pessions of the Body thus moved by a Blas from the heat and cold of the Archeus And therefore neither do they any longer happen in a dead carcass as neither after a Disease obtains the Victory neither also when the Disease ceaseth the occasional matter in the mean time remaining 3. That the very thing which worketh heat in us doth efficiently also produce cold Not indeed privatively in respect of heat because cold is a real and actual Blas of the Archeus 4. That no curing is made by contraries as neither by reason of like things because a Disease consisteth essentially in the seminal Idea and in the matter of the Archeus but at leastwise substances do not admit of a contrariety in their own essence 5. That a Disease is primitively overcome by extinguishing of the Idea or a removal of the essential matter thereof 2. Originally by allaying and pacifying of the disturbed Archeus And 3. From a latter thing to wit if the occasional matter be taken away which stirs up a motive and alterative Blas of entertainment that the Idea or Disease may be efficiently made 6. That both the inward causes connexed in the Archeus is the very substantial Disease having in it its proper root But the occasional matter however it be received in the Body is alwayes external because it is not of the inward root and essence of a Disease 7. That Symptoms are accidents by accident breaking forth by excitation or stirring up according to the variety of every Receiver And it is rather a wandring error or fury of our Powers 8. That the Archeus which formed us in the Womb doth also direct govern move all things during life Therefore occasional causes are perceived only in the Archeus who afterwards according to the disturbance thereby conceived doth bring forth his own Idea's which immediately have a Blas whereby they move direct and change and finish whatsoever happens in health and Diseases But the parts of the Body as well those containing as those contained and likewise the occasional causes of Diseases of themselves are dead and idle neither can they move themselves or any other thing Seeing nothing is moved by it self which is not by it self and primarily vital except weight which naturally falleth downwards 9. That the products and effects of Diseases are seminal generations so depending on the Seeds that they do shew forth the properties of these 10. That heat cold heates c. seeing they are not the proper causes of a Disease nor the true products of Diseases but only the symptomatical accidents and signatures of Diseases therefore also neither do they subsist by themselves but they do so depend on Diseases that they depart together with them like a shadow Because they are the errors of a vital light or an erroneous Blas stirred up from Diseases 11. That Diseases are seminal Beings except extrinsecal ones wounds a bruise or stroke burning c. and therefore effects of the Archeus resulting in a true action from the occasionals of the exciter accidentally sprung up in an Archeal error of our Powers 12. That although without the will of a living Creature contraries should be found in nature yet by these there should be no possible restauration of the hurt faculties as neither a pacifying of the Areheus and by consequence no curing if that be even true That Natures themselves are the Physitiannesses of Diseases and that the Physitian is their Minister Truly that thing is proved by the Fire the which by reason of the most intense coldness of the Aire which I have elsewhere proved to be far more cruel than the cold of the Water doth the more strongly flame and burn So far is it that Fire should be exstinguished by cold which is falsly reputed its contrary And moreover neither have the Schooles known that Fire is not extinguished by Water because it is cold moist or contrary to it but by reason of choaking onely The which we daily see in our Furnaces For as the Fire is momentany and connexed unto it self by a continual thred of exhalations hence it is stifled almost in one only moment for so the water because it is fluid enters into the pores of the burning matter and by stopping them up doth suffocate or quench the Fire so also a Mettal or Glasse being fired and burning bright do shine long in the most cold bottom of the Water and in the mean time a Coal being fired is choaked in an instant under the Water Because the pores thereof are presently stopped Therefore Copper burning bright is sooner extinguished than Silver and Silver than Gold But Glasse being fired because it wants pores shines longer under the Water than a like quantity of Gold Yea hot Water doth sooner quench Fire than cold because it sooner pierceth the pores Therein also they have remained dull that they considered our heat alwayes by making a comparison of it with Fire For although the Fire be a Being of Nature yet because it was directed by the most High for the uses of Mortals that it might enter into Nature as a Destroyer and might be as it were an artificial Death therefore it prosecutes its own artificial ends but hath not any thing in its self which may be vital or seminal There is therefore no Fire in Nature if it hath not first arose unto a due degree for a Destroyer wherein it is nothing or little profitable for the speculation of Medicine Surely our heat is not graduated and therefore neither is it fiery neither doth it proceed from the Fire as being weakened or diminished but it is the heat of a formal light and therefore also vital neither therefore doth it subsist in its last or highest degree even as the fire doth For it admits of a latitude and its degree is made to vary according to the provocation if its Blas For although it be from a formal light and in that respect doth live yet through a Blas it doth oft-times ascend higher or is pressed lower as well in healthy persons as in sick folk In the next place it more highly deviates through furies and then it as burnt up uncloaths it self of a vital light and assumes a Caustical or burnt Alcali which thing is seen in moist and compressed Hay where Fire voluntarily ariseth So in Escarrie effects our heat being forgetful of its former life passeth into a degree of fire For through a congresse of lightsome beames and a degeneration of the salt of the Spirits even as in Hay true Fire is bred and would burn us if the Archeus should expect this end of the Tragedy before death Our heat indeed is in the Fire as the number of Two is in the number of Forty yet the Fire is not in
that labour with the astonished Disease Convulsion and Palsie and Leprous Persons to be Cured Fie fie Miracles are manifested by an Unimitable finger Besides it behooveth rightly to distinguish effects by Accident from those which are due unto their Causes by themselves As if a Virgin through the failing of her Menstrues doth labour with a strangling Epilepsie or affect of the Palsie but her Courses bewraying themselves upon the drinking of the Water of the Spaw she be freed from the annexed disposition there is not cause that therefore we should commend the true Apoplexie Asthma falling Evil or Palsie to have been Cured by the Fountains of the Spaw For Diseases which proceed from the Womb are Uniuersally the Client of another Monarchy and do consist of another Root than those which break forth from the Condition of the Microcosme as well in the one as in the other Sex The which indeed if any one shall not distinguish of he procures loud laughter to himself from the more discreet Person But besides it hath already been spoken how much a hungry Salt may profit in Fountains but hereafter we must shew what the Coâroded and dissolved Mine of Iron may act That therefore first of all doth manifestly binde and therefore it strengthens the Stomach and any of its neighbouring parts In loose therefore and dissolute Diseases the Waters of the Spaw do agree or are serviceable to wit in those of the Lientery Flux Caeliacke Passion and Dysentery or bloody Flux c. Whereunto I exspect that it will be objected that whatsoever Irony matter is offered it provokes the mouth Issues and alwayes the breaches or enfeeblements of the Liver and Slpeen and so that from hence it is agreeable to truth that the Waters of the Spaw are rather opening than Astringent By reason of which difficulties some perhaps doubting do rather flie for refuge unto the unlike parts in Mars I answer from the Adeptists That there doth oft-times wander up and down in us a certain resolved Salt and Mineral one plainly Excrementitious a resolved Tartar I say existing either in the first or in the last matter whereof whether the Womb Liver Slpeen Kidney the Mesentery or Stomach be the Mine we now reckon it all one So that it be manifest that it brings forth remarkable troubles unto that labour with it Stomoma therefore that is Steel or Iron Administred in Powder being drunk down assoon as may be that hurtful Salt which hearkens not to the commands of purging things runs headlong unto the Iron and adheres unto it that it may dissolve that and display its own Faculty and so is Coagulated nigh that and together with the Iron goes forth But if the Iron or Steel be drunk being dissolved in a sharp Liquour yet not hostile unto us to wit the Spaw waters Nature the same liquours being wasted and more inwardly admitted within presently separates the Iron because it is unapt for nourishment from that which was co-mixed with it and sends it forth thorow the Bowels As may be seen in the blackness of the dungs of the Fountains of the Spaw In which Sequestration of the Iron there is straightway made a Con-flux of Mineral Salts no otherwise than as Silver dissolved in Chrysulca or Aqua Fortis doth flie unto applyed Brasse and dissolved Brasse unto Iron The received Iron therefore freeth from obstruction and openeth by accident to wit the vanquished obstructing matter being taken away with it yet not that it therefore ceaseth by it self to be constrictive It opens I say by a specifical and appropriated power but it constrains or binds by a second quality Now moreover seeing the drinking of the water hath increased a courage and hope in the miserable sick especially in those that have the Stone I will declare my judgement It is certain that the Waters of the Spaw do wash or rince the region of the Urine both because they do easily pass thorow and also because they being many and abundantly drunk and Mineral their hungry Salt hinders whereby the Spirit of the Urin the onely Architect of Stones in us may by a property inbred in it the less Stonifie any thing Because another more potent Salt doth now derive the same Spirit being as it were bound into its own Jurisdiction But because that is onely a Cloakative or dissembled Cure although the made Stones and Sands are expelled as it were by the cleansing of the sliding water yea as long as the waters shall be drunk they hinder new Collections of the Stone Yet because they do soon after grow again we judge them to be unfaithful or untrusty Remedies for those that have the Stone For by so much the more readily indeed the Stone hastens to grow by how much that womb the other parent of the Stone shall be the cleaner For shall not the Urine more easily glew a Stone unto a clean Urinal or Chamber-pot than unto one that is besmeared with Oyl For from hence perhaps the Kidneys of Bruit Beasts do abound with very much grease We therefore know a perfect Cure of the Stone and the desired rest to be a far different thing wherein the lesser Stones being sweetly expelled which is the least thing the greater indeed may return into their former Juice by a Retrograde resolving of their Concretion or Composure But neither shall that be sufficient unless the Stonifying inclination be taken away by restorers to wit by the Collected harvest of a few remedies nor is any one able to hope for an entire and wished for health from the Stone no less than from a Fever concerning which we have written in other places and afforded Remedies For the Virtue of healing stands right under every weight that is all Diseases are with it of one value or esteem and it can be diminished by no Disease The more noble powers of remedies onely are desired which cry unto Heaven to the Creator that they have come as it were in vain neither that there is any one almost who can loosen their bands We must timely abstain from complaints in an Ulcerous or corrupt age Therefore as to what belongs unto the first qualities of the Fountains of the Spaw although we are very little careful of those because they are Momentary and those which have not a Vital Anatomy as often as they are not infamous in a very incensed degree yet we Decree that their hungry Salt is in the first Degree of heat and dryth but that the dissolved Vein of Iron hath reached to the second Degree of Cold and Dryth But it hath been shewn with an indulgence of Aristotle and by the above-said Inferences that the water it self is moist in the highest degree but remisly Cold. But because those qualities as well of the water as of the Minerals are Relosteous ones or those which have not a Seminal Being in them they have not any thing of a Cure in them but they Preposterously or over-thwartly happen unto constituted things like
was presently cold they thought that those in-blown Spirits were the beginning Center and primitive sunny point and that of heat not regarding that the Spirits themselves are of themselves cold and that their heat doth perish in an instant as soon as they are snatcht away from the beam and aid of the heart A very great wonder it is that it hath been hitherto unknown and undetermined unto what heats the whole Tragedy of things vital and not vital is ascribed Whether of the two may prevail over the other in the original and support of heat For seeing neither the heart nor vital spirit of the same are from their own nature and substance originally hot for this cause it hath not been so much as once thought from whence our heat comes or from what original it is in every one of us For seeing the knowledge of ones self is the chief of Sciences as well in Moral as Natural things the Schools ought never to have been ashamed to have enquired into the Fountain of Heat and Life in things How great darkness hath from thence remained in Healing and in preserving of the Life God hath known This controversie therefore I have discussed with my self from my youth after this manner First I knew that fire even as in the Chapter of Forms was not an Accident nor a Substance and much less an Element The which I have elsewhere demonstrated with a full sail of Phylosophy And then that the Sun was hot from a proper endowment and that the fire of the Kitchin was likewise given although for the workman and a death subjected to the hands of Artificers But when as both of them forsake us that we have a Flint and a Steel from whence we make a fire To wit we strike fire out of two cold or dead things So also the waters of hot Baths under the earth are enflamed by Salt and Sulphur which are volatile things and that the arterial blood is partly Salt and partly fat and Sulphurous Then in the next place that there ought to be a smiting of Pulses together not indeed for a cooling refreshment as the Schools do otherwise dream but indeed that as butter is made of Milk by charming or shaking of it together So a vital Sulphur of the arterial Blood The which afterwards by a smiting of the same endeavour conceives a Light in the volatile Spirit and a formal or vital Light is propagated as it were Light being taken from Light To wit the salt Spirits and Sulphur of the arterial Blood do by the Pulse rub themselves together in the Sheath of the Heart and a formal Light together with Heat is kindled in the vital Spirit from the Light I say of the most inward and implanted sunny Spirit in which is the Tabernacle of the specifical Sun even unto the Worlds end In this Sun of Man the Aimighty hath placed his Tabernacle and his delights his Kingdom together with all his free gifts But the Light which is conceived by smiting together is not indeed made a new as from a Flint and Iron but it is propagated by the obtainment of matter from the sunny specifical and humane Light or is kindled and enlarged by it It is there indeed universal and vital consisting in the points of a tempered Light and it is in Nature indeed specifical in respect of its production and limited for the Life of Man but it is every way made individual by him who hath placed his vital Tabernacle in the Sun of the Species Out of which Tabernacle he thereby enlightneth every Man that cometh into this World Because the Lord Jesus is after an incomprehensible manner the Light Life Beginning Way Truth and the All of all Things For as the Life cannot subsist for a moment without the lightsome Spirit by which it is enlightned and soulified in the habitation of the Sun So neither can the Soul nor Life in any wise subsist for one only moment without the Grace of the same eternal Light But I have conceived of the quality and intension of Heat resulting from the Light as a whole humane Body weighing perhaps 200 Pounds is hot with an actual warmth and the which without that Light of Life should presently be cold and be a dead Carcass There is therefore so much Heat in the Heart as is sufficient for diffusing warmth through so many Pounds of Water otherwise cold The Life therefore of Species as it consisteth in a simple and ununited Light containes a mystery of divine providence For a fiery Light however by reason of distance it be mitigated and reduced into a nourishing luke-warmth Yet naturally it cannot stop as that it cannot conspire for the top of a connexed Light and so contend for its own ruine or destruction Therefore the Father and dispenser of Lights hath provided who sitting in the Tabernacle of the Sun hath constrained or tied up Lights by Species or particular kindes and bolts Here it is sufficient to have shewn that they are the Reliques and plainly the Blasphemies of Paganish Errour to have said A Man and the Sun doth generate a Man Seeing Life belongs not to the Sun but the Fewels Excitements of sublunary Actions alone as also the necessary supplies readily serviceable to the Life CHAP. CXIV The nourishing of an Infant for Long Life IT is already manifest that Life is not from the Stars but that from a seminary Faculty of the Parents Life is short Diseasie Healthy and Growing For it is limited according to the Disposition of the Seed and Truncks of the Body no less also according to the goodness of Nourishments and Climates Among the Impediments of Long Life is an infirm Constitution of the Young and a bad nourishing of the Infant The Young therefore being generated and brought forth the quantity and quality of the Nourishment is to be regarded seeing its little Body ought to be nourished and to wax great and so to be setled or confirmed And it is now chiefly known that the nourishable Juice in a Child is adopted into the Inheritance of the radical Moisture For Nature hath appointed Milk in the Dugs for the Meat and Drink of the little Infant which Nourishment hath rendred it self common unto him with Bruit-beasts It might be thought by some that it would be injurious unto God if we should think of any other Nourishment as if he had not alwayes chosen out of Means that which should be most exceeding good But surely shall not the God of Nature be a Step-father and Nature her self a Step-mother because he made not Bread not Wine but Grain and Grapes only Nature is governed by the Finger of God It is thus Milk therefore as an ordinary Nourishment hath afforded a sufficiency for living but not that it should be serviceable for long Life For Nature no longer meditated of long Life after that she knew her Author had cut short the Life nor would have every one to be long lived But he
of the Disease of the STONE And likewise of sence or feeling Sensation pain unsensibility benummednesse motion unmoveablenesse Even as of Diseases of this sort the Leprosie Falling-Evil Apoplexy Palsie Convulsion Coma c. All things being new and paradoxal hitherto A Treatise profitable as well for a natural Philosopher and Physitian as for an Alchymist but most profitable for the Sick John Baptista van Helmont of Bruxels being the Author A TREATISE Of the Disease of the STONE PETRIFICATION Or the Making of a STONE CHAP. I. 1. THe Schooles of Medicine did already doubt before Paracelsus 2. The opininion of the Antients concerning the causes of making of a Stone 3. A sounder doctrine of Paracelsus 4 The flux of seeds for a Stone 5. The disposition of Minerals from the Creation of the World 6. What the Trival-line is 7. What the Flinty Mountain is 8. From whence the diversity of Stones is 9. The powder of the Adamant is alwayes yellow 10. Great or rocky stones and small stones how they differ 11. The seed of a stone wherein it exceeds a vegetable seed 12. Stonifying in a man and why a stone growes to the Tooth 13. Some remarkable things 14. Why some Insects do not become a stone but the more perfect Animals sometimes altogether 15. That the form is not introduced from the power of the matter 16. After what manner a man is made a stone 17. Nothing of a rocky stone is common with the stone in a man 18. The Duelech of Paracelsus 19. The praise of wild Carrot-seed c. THe more refined Physitians of the late past age were silently astonished at the Doctrine of the Schooles concerning the Elements Temperaments and Humours which was so unfortunate and un-obedient to their own positions For neither could they satisfie themselves with a quaternary of humours for all Diseases Wherefore it was most exceeding easie for Paracelsus who by a most excelling testimony of Medicines had drawn all Germany into the admiration of himself to perswade those that already doubted of the fiction of his Tartar that Tartar traiteroufly entring out of meates and drinkes was the true cause of any disease whatsoever which thought of his begat Credit and hath now fixed so stable a Root that there is not almost any one who doth not flee unto the Tartar of Parabelsus I did owe indeed a singular Treatise unto Tartar who was readily prepared for the History of the Stone but that I had abundantly written thereof among the Beginnings of Naturall Philosophy and therefore I had left that Volume maimed if I had from thence transferred the Treatise of Tartar hither For truly the Original integrity of Nature being there placed within the matter the Archeus and the Life or Form together with seminal Beginnings hitherto unheard of the Ferments also the Authors of any kind of transmutations whatsoever being newly discovered but the Elements Qualities Complexions and the fight strife contrarieties and victories of these being rejected Also the fictions of Humours and Catarrhs being banished out of Nature and Medicinal consideration At length Flatus's Tartars and the three first principles of the Chymists being excepted out of the place of exercise of Diseases and then I by degrees declining from things Speculative unto Discourses handling Affects have explained the defects and successive alterations of Nature and have pithily manifested to the World the true cause of Diseases hitherto unheard of Therefore the Stone being as a Monster bred at home in our own House I have named this Book as it were on Outlaw and now the errour of Tartar borrowed from Paracelsus being forsaken I now come unto Petrification or the making of a Stone unknown to the Schooles For indeed the Antients giving vp their Names to Aristotle do according to the principles of this man as yet think that all Stones and Minerals without distinction are made most especially of earth by the mediation of heat and cold as external workmen yet with some additament of the three other Elements Notwithstanding since the weight of the rocky Stone exceeded the weight of Water they from thence conjectured that the Earth might be the proper matter of all Minerals And although they doubted in the weight of Gold and knew neverthelesse that a Mathematical demonstration which is stronger than any Syllogism was to be fetcht from its weight yet in the mean time they could not believe having neglected their own dimensions that Gold was Earth many times piercing it self And now they distrusted their owne positions much more seeing they determined Gold to be composed not of Earth alone which is more ponderous than the other three Elements but of the other more light ones being mixed in a just or equal measure and proportion Therefore as destitute of counsel they hung the diligent search of its weight upon the nail and Controversies being laid aside they being as it were oppressed with drowsinesse were content with saying that mettals being as it were frozen with cold because they did again flow through the torture of the fire and the superfluity of water being dryed up but the ayr and fire being well nigh excluded remained as it were withered Thus the dry Phylosophy of Aristotle hath reported hereof But they proved their position as I have said For Mettals as they imagine flow all abroad through a contrary heat As if indeed a frozen work could not melt but by the service of the Bellows Or that earth should be capable of melting by fire And again at its pleasure could require the countenance of earth as oft as it should feel cold Are the Schooles so unmindfull of themselves in that they not so long since said that the Element of water is of it self vehemently cold and slackly moist and so that Mettals ought to be congealed not from earth but from Water But that the earth of it self is vehemently dry and slackly cold and so ignorant of congealing so that from hence it followes if Mettals in their chief part are earth they shall never be able to flow or be frozen up seeing that they shall be able to be at the most but remisly cold Neither by a heightned heat shall earth be ever able to be converted into water or a watery substance while it melted in the mettal For truly they grant unto the earth an intense or heightned dryth which cannot but be fortified by the fire but not destroyed thereby In like manner neither can the remiss or slack cold of the most strong earth convert this earth while by the force of the fire it should be dissolved into water again into earth Because they believe the remiss qualities of the Elements not to have so much activity as that they can break the intense qualities of another Element For with the same foot of stupidity wherewith they began they proceed to say that great and small stones are earth hardned and as it were withered with heat The which they prove by Potters earth which
of the enemy and wine add heat therefore he who proceeds by Wine heals according to the conformity of nature Notwithstanding let us grant that Heat Wine being administred is the greater yea also that the Fever is the sharper For what other thing follows from thence than that the Wine shall increase the vital constitution And that that state is nearer to the constitution of young folks than that which proceeds by cooling things or without the administration of Wine for cooling means are more like to death to cessation from motion and to defect But heat from moderate Wine is a mean like unto life and a means which the Archeus himself useth For the Constitution of heat increased by Wine is nearer to the Vigour State and Crisis than if the strength being weak there shall be the more feeble heat by abstaining therefrom These things concerning the drinking of Wine But concerning the drinking of water Let the decision be that feverish persons desire not hot water nor do they thirst after that which is luke-warm but cold water is to be admitted in a slack degree in the highest heat of the state of the Fever Neither must we be afraid as I have said of a co-mixture of the extreames Because experience hath long since successfully shooke off this fear But in other stations of Fevers neither is cold water as neither is abundance to be drunk yet thirst is never to be endured not indeed under sweat But then let the drink be hot If thirst be urgent and the Fever hath not the fodder of drink the in-bred moisture is wasted But moreover That which they accuse concerning the crudity of water take thou thus Water springing out of sand is simple and the best and it is to be taken from the fountain it self But that which runs thorow Pipes or issues out of a clayie spring is now partaker of a mixt malignity But this water I call not so much crude as infected For water by it self deserves neither to be called crude nor cocted as neither is it ripened by heat nor doth it attain any thing thereby for it is sufficient so that its highest cold be blunted but none may use infected waters as neither any cold drink in the Plague and malignant Fevers But there is a larger reason for an hot remedy But neither do I ever perswade a remedy which may moderate Fevers only by heat but as Wine profits by comforting and by more throughly introducing succours coupled unto it So do remedies by cutting resolving and cleansing and in that respect the more prosperousty because they have the Archeus in operating agreeable to themselves For thus far he co-mingles his own powers with the powers of remedies that the occasional cause may be put to flight and that the more firm health may not presently receive its strength prostrated At length perhaps they will object against these things That since heat in a Fever is the effect of the spirit that maketh the aassult his being wroth It also followes that from the measure of heat the wrothfulness of the Archeus is to be measured and by consequence that whatsoever increaseth a feverish heat doth also increase a Fever I have answered before that there are many branches effects or various Symptomes of one root And that oft-times doating delusions Coma's or sleeping Evils intermittencies of pulses to wit things denoting an increased Fever do happen under the more mild heat Even as from a tender branch of an Acorn there is a greater leaf than from an old Oak There is therefore an Elenchus or fault in the argument to say the Fever is the greater in the man for I abhor that encreased Fever the which mortal increased symptomes do follow But I in no wise fear the Fever to have increased because the Archeus doth the more strongly rise up for the expulsion of the root of the Fever And if they in conclusion call that thing an increased Fever I little dwell upon it For so also the Schools perswade that we are not greatly to be afraid of accidents unexpectedly happening besides reason It is therefore to be noted That the Archeus is never enflamed in his whole For otherwise about the end of the fit the whole Archeus being dissolved or wasted should be the cause of fainting The Archeus therefore is enflamed in much or a little portion of himself And therefore the Archeus being encreased by Wine if more thereof be enflamed yet more of him is not lost and yet he more strongly strained the occasional cause than if the Archeus be not strengthened and encreased and a less part of him be enflamed CHAP. XIII The Essence of a Fever 1. Of what sort an Essential and Natural Definition is 2. Diseases are Beings subsisting by themselves and not accidents 3. Why Diseases inhabite in a strange Inn. 4. A Disease is not only a Travel nor a Motion nor a Distemper nor a Disposition 5. The Essence of a Fever which the Schools are hitherto ignorant of 6. There is therefore another Scope of healing than what hath hitherto been 7. That the occasional Cause alone distinguisheth Fevers 8. The cure of a Physitian is made easie THE definition of a thing is not to be framed from the general kind of the thing defined and from the constitutive difference of the Species's or particular kinds even as I have elsewhere demonstrated in Logicks Because besides rational and irrational if so be they are as yet the constitutive differences of living Creatures no differences of like sort appear in the Schools But a natural definition ought to consist of the material and internal efficient or seminal Causes Because those two are those which constitute the thing it self and that the whole and they remain unseparably essential in it as long as it self is and so they explain a thing by its causes and the properties of these Truly Fevers have a matter and an internal efficient cause after the manner of other Beings subsisting in them although all diseases inhabite in a living body because they are not Beings of the first Creation but begun from the curse of the departure out of the right way And therefore neither have they properly their own seminal Being which constitutes and nourishes them But they have an occasional Being from whence they are stirred up instead of a seed The which ceasing the Disease ceaseth As oft therefore as that which is not vital is inserted into a vital soil the Archeus is angry and becomes wroth that he may exclude that forreign thing out of his Anatomy The which I have perfectly taught in the entrance of this Treatise by a thorn thrust into the finger Therefore a Fever is not only an expulsive endeavour or alterative motion and much less the alteration and disposition it self as the Schools have otherwise thought but a Fever is a material part it self of the Archeus defiled through indignation For a part of the Archeus is defiled through anger
to us as it were a brand from a tormentor for a remembrance of Calamities and of our fall And that the knowledge of good and evil attained by eating of the Apple was Reason its very self which is so greatly adored by mortal men Afterwards therefore my minde endeavoured to depart not indeed against but from the use of Reason to wit by abstaining from all discourse in the contemplation of a thing as a thing is good true and a Being in act But that thing I could not presently obtain because Reason did continually accompany my Soul against its will as a shadow doth the body the which without bidding comes into the counsel of the minde from an antient possession and a not sufficient concealing of our councel And by this Title the conversation of Reason was afterwards as yet more burdensome sorrowful tedious and clowdy unto me For truly then I began to perceive that reason did vex the Soul with a multiplicity with a vain complacency of Sciences and did tempt with it a ridiculous enquiry after virtues promising an Ornament of life before the World which doth adore its Starry Goddess Reason Wherefore it did miserably draw the understanding and will into its pleasure and did so load the memory that even now in my man-hood my memory did fall as an Asse under his burden and got a defect My minde therefore had often banished Reason but it hath alwayes privily entred afresh against the endeavours of the minde hath discovered its learned Hypocrisie and hath placed its batteries against the most weak wall of the minde Indeed it hath alwayes promised a vulgar applause the foolish rewards of ambition boasting that it is nourished under it But then it first rose up against a strictness of life against which as against harsh Phylosophy and disswaded from that as follies and fraudulently excused many things here and there unlawful with the priviledges of youth or of Custome already in many places received and even readily serving for the flattery of the minde it by a learned Industry followed it as it were a Chamber-maid feigning Reasons at the pleasure of the minde now inclined At length my minde asked what knowledge Reason could give Whereto she presently answered she could effect by the great art of Lullius that a man may be able to discourse of every knowable thing as it were an omniscient person with the admiration of the whole World Then my minde was wroth and said to Reason Be gone wicked pratler for first of all I detest discursive matters therefore have I certainly known that Reason doth alwayes forsake the Soul with an unsweetness of dryness stumbling in the dark with disquietness uncertainty and bitterness Last of all as I knew that there was no help to me in nature nor seperation from so troublesome and tedious a guest I hid my self within the Prayer of silence so that sometimes I could altogether and now and then in part uncloath my self of Reason and all its appendices It happened therefore that without or at leastwise besides those things which may be known by reason or be any way conceived by its help I came down as it were by a Dream under an unutterable light Of which I have nothing to say further because that envious reason hath presently withdrawn me from thence For as soon as Reason being not yet putrified waxing dim under the accustomedness of the light had entred with my minde it raised up an admiration in me who I was from whence after what manner and why I had come down thither and so I fell out of the light into miserable darknesses under the day or in the day-time But in my judgement that light was delayed scarce the space wherein any one might drawingly pronounce four syllables Nevertheless from thenceforth I felt my self changed from that which I was before For I even tasted down the immortality of my Soul the foundation of Faith and Religion a knowledge that is to be preferred before all frail or mortal things I proceeded therefore with a greater study or endeavour to depart from Reason because it was that which hath never assaulted me naked but deceitfully covered with fighting and deceitful juggles but it had never truly forsaken me but with uncertainty Salomon calls the spirit of a man the Lamp or Candle of God But not that God is in darkness or that he hath need of the splendor of the spirit of a man But altogether because the hidden knowledges of things are infused by the Father of Lights into us by meanes of this Candle I apprehended more certainly daily that Reason was not that spirit of a man and therefore neither that Candle of God Yea neither the light of that Candle but that there was a far different light of that Candle by the vigour or efficacy whereof it might pierce a knowable thing granted unto it Indeed I throughly beheld that the Soul was not in need of yea nor the framer of a Syllogisme because it will not use it being once severed from the body For truly its native knowledge was far more noble and certain than any demonstration which is the top of reason Then in the next place I knew that neither did sense frame a Syllogisme but that Reason the framer of demonstrations did possess the animall understanding or Imagination which is a meane between the senses and the intellect Wilt thou ask why the light shineth why the water is moyst yieldeth to a finger that enters it c. and thou shalt finde that by how much the more clear any thing is by so much the reason thereof is the more stupid remote and dull Then therefore I clearly beheld that Reason is wallowed up and down among thick darknesses And then that wheresoever there is no discourse no premises there also no conclusion consequence or reason is found Notwithstanding a knowledge of the premises is more certain than of the conclusion because seeing it is supposed from things that are firstly or chiefly true also that knowledge is in the Soul without Reason because before a demonstration Whence I concluded with my self first that reason doth generate nothing but a dim or dark knowledge or a thinking Then next that the knowledges of the truth of things and premises do proceed not indeed from Reason but from a far different beginning to wit the intellectual light of the Lamp or Candle Wherefore I straightway observed that the discourse of Reason doth extenuate or lessen overshadow hinder and choak that noble act of understanding whereby the knowledges of the premises are implanted in us And I learned more and more that Reason was far of from and moreover also out of the light of truth because like Bats it onely cannot endure or bear the light being content with its own borrowed Glow-worm light Because it is that which is properly nothing else but a wording faculty of discoursing co-bred with us as mortalls from sin So that I say it more wearieth
water pressed together into the room of one part where Gold is framed of water Wherefore so far is it that the piercing of dimensions becomes impossible seeing that nothing is more natural or home-bred to nature than to co-thicken the body of the water but indeed although there may something appear in the water like to the three first things yet also there is no hope that they should be rent asunder from each other because in the every way simplicity of the water an adequate or suitable Sulphur is after a certain sort hidden which cannot be seperated from the other two but they all do accompany together Those are not the three true Principles which are abstracted or seperated onely by the Imagination The water therefore since it doth on every side vary off-Springs according to the diversity of their seedes thus so many kindes of Earths Mineralls Salts Liquors Stones Plants living Creatures and Meteors do rise up in their particular kindes from the blast or inspiration of the seedes For the water putrifies by continuance in the Earth is made the juyce of the Earth Gums Oyl Rosin Wood Berries c. and that which of late was nothing but water materially now burns and sends forth a fume or smoak Not indeed that that fume is air but is either a vapour or a drie exhalation and a new fruit of the water not yet appointed to be wholly turned by its seed It is proved For the Body of the air cannot make a shadow in the air but whatsoever doth exhale out of a live Coal doth make a shadow in the Sun For since the air hath a limited consistence and thickness and that agreeable to its own simpleness it followes that whatsoever is thicker than the air that is not air Moreover that which being made thin by the heat of the fire doth now exhale is as yet thicker than the air and so for that cause makes a shadow surely that shall become far more thick in the cold and shall be made visible in Clouds Whatsoever exhalations therefore do from the Earth climbe upward and are joyned in Clouds for this cause also those Clouds do stink no otherwise than as water doth under the Aequinoctial line and there the Ferment and Seed of their Concretion or growing together being consumed they are turned into pure water no otherwise than the water is after it hath escaped and overcome the bounds of its putrefaction which it had conceived under the line The dew therefore is a Cloud belonging to the Spring not yet stinking falling down before it can touch the place of cold So a mist or fogg is a stinking Cloud not as yet refined through the putrefaction of its Ferment because as many as have passed over the Alps with me have known how greatly Clouds taken hold of with the hand do stink but the rain-Rain-water collected thence how sweet and without savour it is and almost incorruptible For when any thing doth exhale whether it be in the shew of water or Oil or smoak or mists or of an exhalation although indeed it brings not away with it the seedes of the Concrete or composed Body at leastwise it carries the Ferments upward which that they may be fully abolished from thence and that the remaining matter may return into water it behooves that they be first lifted up into a subtile or fine Gas in the kitchin of the most cold air and that they passe over into another higher Region and do assume a condition in the shape of the least motes or Atomes And that the Ferments do there die as well through the cold of the place as the fineness of the Atomes as it were by choaking and extinguishing For cold is therefore a principle not indeed of life but of extinguishment To wit as it doth sub-divide the parts of the Atomes as yet by more subtilizing them even as I have above taught And so that Woods are also the sooner consumed by fire under cold as if they were driven by a blast From which necessity verily that place was from the beginning alwayes chilled with continuall cold Because the Authour of nature least he might seem to have been wanting to the necessities of his Creature hath every where fitted ordinations according to necessities Therefore cold is naturall and home-bred to that place but not from the succeeding Chymera of an Antiperistasis Indeed the matter of fruits being brought thither must needes return into their first Being and the infections of the Ferments are therefore first to be removed by the mortifications sub-divisions subtilizings piercings choakings and extinguishings of the cold The Air therefore is the place where all things being brought thither are consumed and do return into their former Element of water For in the Earth and water although Bodies sprung up from seedes do by little and little putrifie and depart into a juyce yet they are not so nearly reduced into the off-spring of simple water as neither into a Gas For Bodies that are enfeebled or consumed do straight way in the Earth draw another putrifaction through continuance a ferment and Seed Whence they flee to second Marriages and are again anew increased into succeeding fruits But the fire the death of all things doth want seedes being subjected to the will of the Artificer it consumeth all seminall things but brings over their combustible matters into a Gas. Paracelsus affirms that three Beginnings are so united in all particular principles that one cannot wholly be freed from the other by any help of art But saving the authority of the man our Handicraft-operation containing his secret Samech hath affirmed that which is contrary to his assertion by the Spirit of Wine being turned into an un-savoury water And so neither can that man cover his ignorance Indeed the Spirit of Wine being wholly capable of burning made void of Phlegme or watery moysture and Oil it alwayes for the one half of it passeth into a simple un-savoury and Elementary water by a touching of the Salt of Tartar on it Again the same thing is made by repetition as to the other part For that man was ignorant of the thingliness of a Gas to wit my Invention and next of the properties of cold in the Air yea he thought that the vapour of the water was plainly annihilated which sottishness of that his proper form of speech is least of all to be winked at in so great a Distiller Especially because he would have the Elements to be seperable from feigned Elements rather than the three first things Wherefore from the dissection of the water delivered it now sufficiently appeares that the simple water is not crude or raw and that fire doth not take away the crudity from it which it hath not Because the whole action of the fire is not into the water but into that which is co-mixed with it by accident Galen according to his manner transcribing Diascorides word for word and being willing to measure the Elementary
Degrees of Simples he hath not attempted it by the discretion of his Tongue and so he divined that more of the fire had concurred to a mixture where he found the more sharpness and bitterness Which thing the Schooles even till now hold as authenticall although Opium being bitter hinders it although Flammula or Scarrewort the Glasse being close shut layeth aside its tartness as also Water-Pepper and the like And what things are moyst do burn or sting but dried things do binde Neither shall the Galenists easily finde out a way whereby they may bring fire for water-Pepper under dirt For it hath been unknown in the Schooles that all properties not onely those which they call occult or hidden but also that any other properties do flow out of the lap of seeds and all those which it pleaseth the Schooles themselves also to call formall ones Surely I do experience four Elementary qualities to be as in the outward bark of things the second qualities to be more dangerous or destructive but the most inward ones to be immediately pressed in the Archeus Yet all of them to be from the bosom of the seede and forms But no quality to come forth from the first matter as neither from the Wedlock of the Elements because they are both feigned Mothers But because the water which is brought into a vapour by cold is of another condition than a vapour raised by heat therefore by the Licence of a Paradox for want of a name I have called that vapour Gas being not far severed from the Chaos of the ââuntients In the mean time it is sufficient for me to know that Gas is a far more subtile or fine thing than a vapour mist or distilled Oylinesses although as yet it be many times thicker than Air. But Gas it self materially taken is water as yet masked with the Ferment of composed Bodies Moreover Paracelsus was altogether earnest in seperating four Elements out of Earth Water Air and Fire and so from his very own Elements which seperation notwithstanding he denieth to be from the three first things possible as if those three first things were more simple and before the Elements Being unmindefull of the Doctrine many times repeated by him To wit that every kinde of Body doth consist onely of three principles but not of Elements because Elements were not bodies but places and empty wombs of bodies or principles void of all body For although the Elements are among us commonly not believed to be undefiled yet Paracelsus calls them so the which he teacheth are by art to be seperated from pollutions But this description receiveth the air in one Glasse common water in another but the Earth either of the Garden or the Field in a third and at length the flame of the fire in a fourth But he shuts the Vessels with Hermes's Seal by melting of the neck And the water for a moneth continually to boyl in its Vessel As though that thing could possibly be done and the Glasse not the sooner leap asunder especially because he commands the water to be shut up without air unto the highest brim of the Vessel and the Glasse to be melted to wit with the water Lastly he conceives a flame in the Glasse and in the very moment wherein it ceaseth it is no more fire but an aiery smoak nor is the fire a substance Last of all nor can the fire be detained within the compass of the Vessel In another place he denieth any Element of fire besides the Heaven but now he calls the fire the Gas of the thing burnt up And he exalts these his trifles for causes of great moment the which notwithstanding he dared not to name Because the doubtful man hath exposed his Dreams to the World in hope of deserving thereby the name of the Monarch of Secrets CHAP. XIII The Gas of the Water 1. The Gas of the water differs from a Vapour 2. A Demonstration from Creation 3. That the Air in Genesis is signified by the Heaven 4. That in the Firmament is the operative Principle of dividing of the Waters 5. The seperating Powers of Waters in the air 6. A History of a Vapour 7. Gas differs from the exhalation of the auntients 8. A supposition of Principles 9. The manner of making in a Vapour 10. The Gas of the Water 11. An example in Gold 12. The Gas of the Water is shewne to the young beginner 13. The incrusting of the Water 14. The heat of the Alps is great yet not to be felt 15. That Gold is not the absence or privation of heat 16. Why Gas is an invisible thing 17. Why the Stars do twinckle 18. Why the Heaven is of an Azure colour 19. The Air knowes not the motion of snatching 20. Above all Clouds the Air is not voyd of all motion 21. What quietness there may be in that place 22. Gas is the Mother of a Meteor 23. Gas and Blas do constitute the whole re-publick of a Meteor 24. The Sun is hot by it self 25. The soils of the Air are the folding doores of Heaven 26. Why some are side-windes but others perpendicular or down-right ones 27. From whence the Blas of the air is originally stirred up 28. Two Causes of every Meteor 29. The water is in the same manner that it was from the beginning 30. From whence there is a stability in the quiet Perolede or Soil of the Air. 31. Peroledes are proved 32. A solving of an objection 33. The water is frozen of it self occasionally but not effectively by cold 34. Why Ice is lighter than water 35. The proportion of lightness in Ice by Handicraft-operation 36. The constancy and simplicity of the water 37. That all Beings do after some sort feel or perceive 38. A Vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 39. The changing into a Vapour in respect of the air the seperater is oblique or crooked 40. The air is dry and cold by it self 41. In an elementated Body there is not a simple and an every way sameliness of kinde 42. The rarefying of the Sulphur of water gives smoothness to Ice but not the immixing of a strange air 43. In the Patient or sufferer re-acting differs from resistance 44. It is proved by 17 Reasons that air is never transchanged into water nor this into that GAS and Blas are indeed new names brought in by me because the knowledge of them hath been unknown to the Antients notwithstanding Gas and Blas do obtain a necessary place among natural Beginnings Therefore this Paradox is the more largely to be explained And first after what sort Gas may be made of water and how different a manner it is from that wherein heat doth elevate water into a Vapour And likewise we must know after what sort these things do happen by the dissection of the water I will therefore repeat That the thrice glorious God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth and the great deep of waters But the
great deep began from the hollowness of the Heaven and was bounded upon the Globe of the Earth Nothing is there read of the creating of the air which notwithstanding is a Body and created into an Element not indeed after the six dayes Creation that it might fill up the place where the air now is Therefore the Heaven designeth or signifieth the Air and the matter of the Heavens is otherwise hitherto unknown And then the Eternall created the Firmament that it might seperate the waters which ought to remain under it from those that were to remain above it But the Firmament was not as it were the floud-gate or as it were an idle partition of the waters but rather the operative Principle of that seperation Even as the Sun is not the middle partition between the day and the night although it was made to seperate the day from the night but the Sun is the maker of the day it self Therefore the Heaven or Air was appointed the seperater of the waters to endure as long as the very World it self For which cause it hath obtained two notable powers To wit exceeding coldness and dryness proportioned thereunto It hath indeed great lights in it which are rowled about in it and the which however they may mitigate its in-born cold yet the air ceaseth not from that office of a seperater And in what part that kinde of seperation ought to happen which is neere to us there are no lights at all yea nor also far aloft But by how much the neerer that air toucheth at the Chambers of the blessed it abounds with many lights Thus is the air it self disposed But now I will set upon the History of an exhalation which contains a vapour and also a Gas and so we must examine the thing contained in the air For neither is Gas a dry and Oily Body which the Antients have called an exhalation but it containeth moreover another watery body also besides Vapours from whence the body manner and progress of Meteors will be known I consider the body of the water to contain in it an Elementary and native Mercury liquid and most simple next an un-savoury and alike simple Salt Both which do embrace within them a uniform homogeneall simple and unseperable Sulphur These things I suppose even as Astronomers do their excentrices that I may go to meet the weakness of our understanding Therefore the Salt of water as it is moved and waxeth hot from the least lukewarmness being impatient of heat straight-way climbes on high as it were to the place of rest and refreshment with a proportionable part of its own Mercury And for that cause the Sulphur also being unseperable from both ought to accompany them The three things being thus conjoyned are the vapour which being brought into the luke-warm air for the same Reasons hasteneth to ascend untill it hath touched the places of its refreshment provided by the Creator Whither the vapour being now brought the heat which troubled it being presently laid down the Salt as it were repenting of its flight could wish that it might again receive a resolving in its Mercury and return into its former state of water But the lofty and troublesome cold of the place hinders it By occasion whereof the Mercury of the water is so frozen or congealed that it is unfit for the resolving of its Salt Wherefore that vapour is presently changed into a Gas and Gas hanging in doubt in a shape wanders up and down So that unless the cold did dry up the Sulphur of the water in a bark or shell and in this respect divide it every vapour and Cloud even as in our glassen Vessels as being heavier than the air should by and by rush downwards Hence we see that vapours having slidden down a little beyond their bound even as straightway after great colds when as the South winde blowes on it at unawares the Mercury of the water being unfrozen that the Salt is at length easily resolved within its Mercury For the importunities of cold and heat do command the Beginnings of the water to be turned inward or outward For so the lesser rains and the dew do fall down in the least Atomes as it were descending and resolved vapours Therefore there is not a new and substantiall generation while of water a vapour is lifted up since it is onely an extenuating by reason of a turning of its parts outward As neither also whiles the Mercury of the water doth resolve the Salt which it again shuts up within it self and is changed into rain Which is nothing but the resolving of the former Atomes of the water and a co-uniting them into greater drops For a changing of the essence doth not interpose where there is onely a locall dividing and turning of parts outward For example yellow and malleable gold doth not change its essence while being dissolved by Aqua Regis it hath the colour of Iron rust nor while it waxeth black in Chrysulca and is beaten into the smallest powder Moreover that thou mayest know Gas in the first place meditate the air to be the seperater next to be simple in its Root so likewise to be simply cold and dry Since therefore heat and cold are more active than moysture and dryness therefore the moysture of the Mercury doth first suffer by the coldness of the air and seeing that the Mercury and Salt of the water are more cold than its Sulphur therefore they are more speedily affected and first of all indeed the Mercury because it is the coldest of the two Companions But since every thing desireth to remain in rest without the change of successive alterations and since the Elements also ought to remain without destruction therefore the Mercury and Salt of the water do hasten to preserve themselves from the coldness of the air And so they co-thicken arm and incrust themselves in Ice that they may the more resist in soundness which otherwise being changed into Gas are lifted up for it is alwayes a property of the air to seperate the waters from the waters or else they stop or hinder that changing and flight But if indeed the water being stirred or disturbed is not made Ice then the cold and dryth of the air do lay hold on the three first things of the water so as the Mercury of the water is made uncapable of resolving the salt in its moysture And so the Salt doth under the cold after a sort wax clotty in the Mercury and Sulphur So as that the Sulphur being more dry than the other two doth also more easily suffer than its fellowes and more from the dryth of the air than from its coldness Wherefore the Sulphur is enlarged into the smallest parts and the Mercuries and Salts of all which parts being made clotty they thrust their Sulphur outward that it might suffer from the dryness of the air Wherefore seeing the Sulphur is equall to either of them both the other two must needes
subdivision is many times re-shaken sub-divided by the colds through which it hath passed This Gas at least should never of its own accord return into its auntient water nor should descend unto the most cold places through which it escaped by climbing upward unless the uppermost Blas of the Stars should force its descent And so the Region of the still air is not void of successive changes but that the Rain doth not there moysten the ground nor the rage of windes serve for the commotion of the waters For since the Gas which it keepes in it self is now reduced to so great a fineness of it self and all its Atomes being as it were roasted with heats in the outward superficies of the Sulphur surely they cannot return into rain unless by a sweet winde they descend to the middle Region where they do re-take the beginnings of coagulating under the luke-warm blowing of the air For a certain alteration opposite to that place from which the Gas departed ought to reduce the Gas into water For a sweet luke-warmth in the still air maketh the Atomes of Gas being covered in their own Sulphur to divide which Sulphur a skin being as it were broken thorow or like a Glasse that is brought suddenly from luke-warmth into the cold is broken and so the Mercury of the water doth dissolve its Salt at the dissolution whereof the Sulphur it self may be melted into its former water And that kinde of inversion or turning in and out of the body of the water and that torture through the exact searching of the cold is necessary that all the power of the Ferment may be wholly taken away out of the Clouds For else much corruption and the much stink of mists would soon destroy mortalls As in Silver being melted the exceeding small atomes of Gold do slide to the bottom So do the atomes of the Gas settle and by sliding they do increase or wax bigger which otherwise being infirm by reason of the coldness of the Air are again lifted up unless a gentle or favourable luke-warmth in the coldest place did now and then hinder it For so indeed rains shoures storms so Hail Snow mist and Frost are through an alteration by accident having arisen as well from a motive as an alterative Blas in the most cold places And so Gas and Blas have divided the whole Common-wealth of a Meteor into Colonies In like manner I have learned by the examples cited that the Sun doth not heat by accident but by it self and immediately And that heat is as intimate and proper to it as its light is to it The Air hath therefore its grounds or soils no lesse than the Earth which the Adeptists do call Peroledes Therefore the invisible Gas is entertained in the various Beds or Pavements of the Air if the Water hath its depths of its Gulfs it s own Gates are in the Peroledes which skilfull men have called the Floud-gates and folding doores of Heaven For neither is Gas falling down into the place of Clouds carried out of the depth of Heaven without its directer Blas Yea it falls not down but thorow ordained Pavements and folding-doores For all the folding-doores do not promiscuously lay open to the Planets but all the Planets in particular are by their own Blas the Key-keepers of their own Perolede Which thing I submit to be examined by Astrologers that are the shewers or disclosers of Meteors and I promise that they shall finde out a rich substance For so windes do sometimes hasten perpendicularly downwards and smite the Earth but otherwise they go side-wayes out of their folding-doores they beat down Houses and Trees as also bring miserable destruction on all sorts of Shipping But the more luke-warm Air doth foreshew the Winde to come out of the depth of the Air and the Gas to bring with it the Blas of Heaven downwards Whence Gas is straight-way again resolved into a Vapour and afterwards into rain Indeed Clouds do then appear which not long before were not beheld at any corner of the World Because the invisible Gas slides downward out of the depth of the upper Air the which growes together into vapours and from thence into drops For that is the appointment of the Air that it may continually seperate the waters from the waters But seeing that one part of water is extended at least to a hundred fold of its dimension while it is made a vapour and so much the finer by how much the Gas thereof is sub-divided into the more lesse parts and since there is that order and that law of universe that all things may be carried on for the necessity of man and the preserving of the World Indeed in this respect do heavy things tend upward light things are drawn downward Hence it hath seemed to me that the Blas of the Stars is disturbed into rain and is carried into clearnesses and other seasons as oft as the pluralities of Gas it self in the still Perolede of the air do seem to threaten almost choakings and the too-much com-pressions in the air Yet I am not so carefull concerning the occasionall causes of a Meteor it is sufficient that I have known an exhalation arising from beneath to wit a vapour and Gas to be the materiall cause of every Meteor It sufficeth to have known Blas to be the effective cause by the authority of the holy Scriptures The Stars shall be to you for times or seasons dayes and years This therefore is the unrestable appointment of the water that by proceeding continually upwards and downwards it should answer no otherwise than as the windes by an inordinate and irregular motion do answer to their Blas of the Stars And so the water which existed from the beginning of the Universe is the same and not diminished and shall be so unto the end thereof But I meditate of the Peroledes or Soils of the Air to be as it were the Bottles of the Stars by which they do unfold their Blas even through their determined or limited places for the uses and interchangeable courses of times or seasons And chiefly because the upper and almost still Perolede doth contain the cause why there are windes fruits dewes and especially things pertaining to Provinces For seeing that the winde is a flowing Air and so hath an unstableness in it we must needes finde the locall cause of stability in the more quiet Perolede Therefore the folding-doores are shut or laying open in the Perolede according to the Blas of the Stars which they obey Nor is it a wonder that there are limits or invisible bounds in the air of so great power and capable to restrain a heap for the visible World doth scarce contain another Common-wealth of things and the least one of powers For who will deny that under a Rock or great Stone of Scotland scarce 12 foot broad and deep 30 there is not some division of a Perolede that in the mean time I may be
silent concerning the Equinoctial Line and its wonderfull properties that a Canon being discharged on one side of the Stone not any noyse or trembling should be heard on the other side thereof the which therefore is called a mute one So also we must needes consider that there are side folding-doores or Gates of Peroledes in the Air because the windes going forth for the most part with a side motion are also by the Blas of the Stars agreeably carried a crosse their bounds From the aforesaid Doctrine of Gas I at length object against my self If the water be frozen by cold into snowes Hail and Ice then the water shall not be dissolved by cold into Gas if of a uniform Agent and Patient there ought to be the same action and effect Where I must seriously note That the Water freezeth it self but is not frozen efficiently by another For although cold may be hitherto thought to congeal yet that is onely occasionally not effectively The water therefore after the sense of its measure perceives the cold of the air not indeed a certain absence or privation of heat even as I have already demonstrated by an ordinary example in Helvetia but as a positive cause in a naturall quality For truly first of all it is without doubt and is manifest by the sight that the cold Air doth by degrees consume Water Snow and Ice yet these two more slowly and the other more swiftly In the next place it is easie to be seen that whatsoever the Air thus privily steales away that presently for that very cause passeth over into an invisible Gas If therefore the cold of the Air should harden water into Ice a further action of the Air would also the Ice being now made continually cease but the consequent is false therefore also the Antecedent For the Sulphur of the water doth easily wax dry and is divided by the cold wherefore the Mercury and Salt of the water perceiving the frost of the Air that would seperate the Waters from the Waters and that they ought to suffer the extension and drying up of their Sulphur and so an alltogether violent impression of the seperater and that they do desire to remain as they are Hence the whole water at once doth arm it self by a Crust that it may resist the seperater Which thing indeed it could not accomplish but that also some part of the Sulphur hath already suffered an extenuating of it self and so also in this respect the Ice doth swim upon the water But that the Sulphur of the water although it was extenuated in the Ice yet hath not laid aside the nature of water is proved by handicraft-operation Fill a glassen and great Bottle with pieces of Ice but let the neck be shut with a Hermes Seal by the melting of the glasse in the same place Then let this Bottle be put in a balance the weight thereof being laid in the contrary Scale and thou shalt see that the water after the Ice is melted shall be weightier by almost an eighth part than it self being Ice Which thing since it may be a thousand times done by the same water reserving alwayes the same weight it cannot be said that any part thereof was turned into air For such is the continuance and constancy of the Elements that although the water departs into a vapour into Gas into Ice yea into composed bodies yet the auntient water alwayes materially remaineth in some place masked by ferments and seedes coming upon it and else-where onely by the importunities of the first qualities made to differ in the Relolleum of Paracellus that is without a seed But from what hath been said before Some remarkable things do arise 1. That the water hath a certain kinde of sense or feeling and so that all Beings do after some sort partake of life Come let us worship the King by whom all things live 2. Seeing that the water doth not incrust it self in the fabrick of a vapour therefore a vapour as well in the cause as in the manner is more acceptable to the water than a Gas is And that thing doth argue in the water something like to choice 3. And that therefore a vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 4. That the changing of water into a vapour is in respect of the seperater oblique or crooked and as it were by accident but that Gas consisteth of a proper appointment of the air whereby the air doth seperate the waters from the waters 5. That the air is far more cold in it self than the water 6. That it is dry by it self 7. That the unity or connexion of entire parts is as acceptable to nature as the dividing of the same is to things opposite 8. That the fabrick of Gas shall afford another intimate principle to the water since it hath not a compositive beginning or part that is the cause of some small difference of kinde besides that which is touched by heat in the rise of a vapour 9. That all created things by how much the more simple they are by so much the more of the same kinde yet an every way most simple homogeniety or sameliness of kinde is not found in bodies 10. That the Sulphur of the water being extenuated in the Ice is the cause of smoothness in congealed things but not the enclosing of a forreign air because alwayes and every where water doth exclude the Wedlock of air 11. That the cold and dryness of the air can act nothing else into the water but to extenuate its Sulphur But that the congealing or hardening it self is an action proper to the water whereby it puts a stop to the seperater 12. That the air acts upon the water without the re-acting of this and the suffering of the air since it is appointed by divine right the seperater of the waters 13. That even in unsensible naturall things re-action differeth from resistance For truly there is no re-action of the water on the air and yet the water is with a resistance 14. That the Schooles have erred because they have dictated every action of nature to be made with a re-acting of the Patient and a suffering of the agent 15. That the changing of Gas into air is impossible 1. For otherwise the air should alwayes increase into a huge body and by consequence all water had long since failed 2. Because besides that which I have elsewhere demonstrated that the air can by no meanes return again into water the same thing is manifest from the but now aforesaid particulars 3. For truly it is proper to water to suffer by air and not likewise to re-act on the air Therefore air being once made by water should alwayes remain air seeing a returning agent is wanting which may turn air into water 4. But for air by it self to return into water opposeth a generall Maxim That every thing as much as in it lies doth desire to remain in it self 5. Especially because air
wants in it self a dissolutive principle of it self caused by the rottenness and interchangeable course of parts 6. If air should at any time be made water that thing should especially be while air is pressed beneath the water And if in water there should be the action of water it should then chiefly obtain its effect upon that air Therefore fill a Glass Bottle half full of water and stop its mouth with a Cork that nothing may breath out then shake the vessel strongly a thousand times upwards and downwards that all the water may as it were froath into bubbles At length notwithstanding thy pains thou shalt not finde air to have departed into water or water into air 7. If therefore water doth not change air into it self otherwise a natural agent works to this end that it may make the Patient like it self there is no other thing afterwards whereby the air may be made water Where as it were by a Parenthesis it comes to be noted that the aforesaid Maxim looseth its universality and truth not onely in the Elements where a mutuall action happens among each other without a desire of changing one into themselves but also in the Heavens yea and also in very many compound bodies For neither doth Mercury in its whole and indivisible substance therefore kill lice that it may make them like it self So neither doth Amber draw Chaffe that thereby it may make it Amber Therefore by a strawie argument the Maxim of the Schooles falls to the ground which otherwise is blown away with a light winde 8. For if air were changed into water that would chiefly happen where those two Elements are co-mixed with each other in their smallest parts for that is in the Clouds But in the Clouds this comes not to passe because in whatsoever place degree manner and quality the air hath touched on the superficies of the water the water is alwayes lessened by the air never at any time increased Therefore there is no action of water into air for if there were any it should be in the hollow superficies of the air where the force of the Element of water residing in its native place is strongest and most conjoyned but there the air consumeth the water because it divides it into a vapour Therefore air never departs into water 10. Seeing therefore no Element hath in it self a Root by which it being as it were affected with wearisomness may change it self into another Element for truly every transmutation proceedeth from a duality or a twofold thingliness elsewhere but there is not a voluntary desire in an Element of dying and converting into another and an appetite appointment and necessity of increasing of nourishing of exchanging it self or of changing the nature in which it was created of God is wanting 11. Vain therefore is the contentious co-mingling of Elements in compound bodies and frivolous is the transmutation of one into another seeing none of the Elements is careful for the passing over of its being from another nor from it self Wherefore I have first concluded with my self that the water and air are primary Elements nor that they can ever make a retrogression or return 12. For the blessed Parent of Nature would not that the Elements should be hostilely opposite and applied that they should breath forth mutuall destruction and devouring continually and that they should be so often made fail and with so many daily formall privations should rise again from death unto their former state without the interposing of a more simple mean Which mean surely should otherwise be desired to be a partaker as well of air as water and yet ought to be neither of these 13. Therefore the holy Scriptures do name the air the seperater but not the destroyer or annihilater of the waters Nor is it right that the air should be drawn to other offices than those which are enjoyned to it by the Workman and Lord of things 14. Finally rarefying or condensing do not change the essential form of the water because they are materiall dispositions destitute of an Archeus 15. Moreover if water having suddenly taken to it a ferment and seed be transchanged into a concrete or composed body Yet that is perpetuall to it by an Elementary priviledge as neither therefore that it ever layes aside the matter of Elementary water 16. It is granted indeed to seeds to frame their composed bodies out of water and to act their Tragedy by the defluxion of forms untill death But the forms of composed bodies do not therefore destroy the simplicity of water and sameliness of its form Much less than the Soul coming suddenly on a body doth destroy the form of flesh For subordinate forms do every where in composed bodies suffer together with each other Therefore much more doth the form of a composed body suffer also the form of its own Element to be untouched Last of all although the air by its greatest coldness doth change the water into Gas yet it never desisteth from the office of Seperater of the waters So that if its cold be restrained at least by its dryth it ceaseth not to raise a vapour out of the water For the action of the Heavens in their circumvolving is uncessant and next also the obedience of the air and water is continuall yea there is an interrupted thread in the acting of all seminall things For truly created things do alwayes respect the will of their Creator which man alone neglecteth CHAP. XIV The Blas of Meteours 1. What Blas is 2. The Blas of a Star worketh more famously by locall motion than by light 3. What the Motive Blas of the Stars is 4. What the Winde is and whence it may be moved 5. That the Stars are made for us 6. Divers activities in Blas 7. That the activities of the Stars are brought down by Blas the executer of motions 8. The errour of Paracelsus 9. The two great Lights do work their own properties 10. How the influences of the Stars may be reduced under the two Lights 11. The Births of rains and Meteors 12. Putrefactions by continuance do arise straightway after the sliding down of the Waters whence are the Ferments and seeds of things 13. A History of Cyprus 14. A resolving of a Question touching the rest or quiet of the Summer-air and the continuall breathing of the Winter-air THE Stars are to us for signes times or seasons dayes and years Therefore they cause the changes seasons and successive courses or interchanges To which end they have need of a twofold motion to wit locall and alterative But I signific both these by the new name of Blas And they do rather stir up a Blas by their mooving through a place than by their light Indeed in a dark night the South winde oft-times followeth the blowing North-windes and this likewise it Therefore because Blas breaths forth a luke-warm winde it hath need not of the heat or light of Heaven it self but of place direction
and connexion Whither when the light of the Stars shall descend the folding-doores do open and shut themselves Therefore let the Key-keeper of the folding-doores be the motion of the Stars Which also moveth the Peroledes or Pavements of the Air. Therefore all heat is not made by fore-existing fire or light nor doth cold shew a naked absence of heat But the motive Blas of the Stars is a pulsive or beating power or virtue in respect of their Journey through places and according to their aspects Which circumstances in the Stars do cause the first qualities on these inferiour bodies no otherwise than bashfulness anger feat c. do stir up cold and heat in men And that thing the Stars have by the gift of Creation The Winde according to Hypocrates is a flowing Water of the Air but I defining it by its causes say that the Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for a naturall winde but otherwise it is often granted to an evill Spirit that even without a Blas he should stir up windes or increase a tempestuous Blas Therefore the Air unless it have a Blas remains quiet nor hath it the principle of motion from it self but it comes to it from elsewhere Therefore the motive Blas stirreth up Windes Tempests over-flowing of Waters by running thorow the divers Peroledes of the Air sometimes upwards sometimes downwards across long-wayes side-wayes into all the Coasts of the Earth although the Elements have no need of motion yet mans necessity requireth that motion But seeing nothing was for mooving of it self except the Archeus granted to seedes it hath well pleased the Eternall to place in the Stars a flatuous violent motive force not much unlike to the Command of his mouth So that Blas is for a testimony to us that God of his excelling goodness hath made the Elements and Stars for us by measuring out bounds of these according to our Commodities Blas therefore mooveth not so much by light beames and motion as motion but as the Stars have come down unto certain places whereunto these Stars do owe their offices Therefore there are stable properties in those places but if they are not stable that happens in respect of other Stars brought with them by an analogicall or proportionable motion for the interchangeable courses of continuance Blas therefore as a Masculine thing in the Stars is the generall beginning of motion it seemes no lesse to respect the Earth than the Air and Water For the Moon according to the holy Scriptures ruleth the night as the Sun doth the day although the Moon for her own half runs not under the night For the Globe of the Earth is divided into four parts into two accesses or flowings and recesses or ebbings of the Ocean daily And it spends almost 28 houres therein and so much the lesse by how much the Sun and Moon shall in the mean time depart from or draw near to each other Blas therefore stirs up also a raging heat in the waters the winde being still But the alterative Blas consisteth in the producing of heat and cold and that especially with the changings of the windes But the Stars neither have nor give moysture or dryth of themselves For neither is moysture to be considered in nature as naked quality without a matter and therefore neither is it brought down from the Stars unto us For all moysture is from the water which was before the Stars were born Therefore Paracelsus erreth who saith that rains snow c. are so the fruits of the Stars that they are boyled to a ripeness in the Stars as it were in bottles Dryness also was in the air the seperater of the waters before the Stars nor is it to be considered without a body in manner of a quality But heat and cold are rather qualities abstracted from a body Therefore there are onely two great Lights and therefore two onely qualities of them are spread into the air from whence all Meteors are stirred or mooved For the heat of life is the property of the Sun but cold of the other Star Also the other Stars have given their names or honours to these two Lights As often therefore as the Stars of the nature of the Moon are brought thorow places of the Sun a luke-warmth is made in the air but if Stars of the nature of the Sun do run down under the same places heat is made according to which qualities of the air the Gas of the air is also diversly altered Hence indeed Blas heats after the same manner thorow the soils of the air therefore Gas also is either detained in its pavements or soils or is brought downward to us So as that the atomes of Gas being invisible through their too much smallness loosing their constriction and excess of cold do again fall together or decay into the smallest drops and hasten downwards But if indeed the luke-warmth doth affect the lower Peroledes when Gas being provoked by Blas wandereth downwards Summer Snowes are made Surely Gas being grown together through frost a luke-warmth presently arising it is melted and rusheth headlong downwards For the Mercurie of the water resolveth its Salt and the Sulphur doth as it were rowl up these two And so they fall down into rain But if indeed that thing happens in the upper Perolede the drops descending are frozen in the middle cold pavements and so they are cast down headlong into Snow and Hails But if luke-warmth do bear sway thorow some continuall Peroledes of the air daily rains do accompany it Hence also it appeares that an unequall Blas in divers soils of the air doth bring forth divers effects For oftentimes the lowermost Peroledes are luke-warm and the day is plainly clowdy and there are very many Clouds But else the second and the third Perolede are luke-warm the lower being cold whence are Snowes And so the other Troop of Meteors is caused unto us Therefore I am now confident that by Gas materially and by Blas operatively and motively their causes and manner do more clearly appear than heretofore they have done From whence Astrologers and Physitians shall be able from a founder ground to presage of some things In the mean time I leave the matters of presages untouched which God by his ministring Spirits hath laid up among his signes of good or ill Onely I will relate what Fryer Stephen of Lusignan the last of the Family of the Kings of Cyprus of the Order of S. Dominick in his description of Cyprus printed at Paris in the year 1580 page 212 rehearseth in French to this purpose About the end of the year an Earthquake happened at Famagusta which continued eight dayes But afterwards raging or Whirle-windes arose passing over the Island and entring into the Market-place of Famagusta for there by beating down a great Pallace they presently take away very many Houses with some Men. So that if some Marriners had not by the chance of
fore-going Chapters I now at length proceed to a diligent examination of the Air. For I have therefore said that it is to be proved by Handicraft-operation that water is not from the co-pressing of air how cold soever it be and so that they have hitherto erred in the mixing of the Elements originall of Fountains c. But the Handicraft operation is true that air may be pressed together in an Iron Pipe of an ell about the length of fifteen fingers at the expansion or enlarging of which co-pressed air the sending forth of a small Bullet thorow a Board or Plank should happen no lesse than if it were driven out of a Hand-gun Which thing surely could not so come to passe if the air by so great a pressing together of it self under the cold of wintery Iron were to be changed into water For from thence have I first of all learned the matter and conditions of the air that it should sometimes most easily sustain a pressing together and enlarging of it self as the sight doth shew From whence I consequently have supposed that by all meanes there must needes be in the air enlarged some free space and vacuum according to the double extension of it Suppose thou if from the breadth of twenty eight fingers air be shut back under a Pipe of five fingers without any destruction of air it followes that almost the fingers and almost half of the air are void of a body For either of the two must needes be so under this mechannick proof that either absolutely there is ordinarily granted a vacuum in the nature of the air or a piercing of bodies in the air being pressed together as was said Many surely will with me more easily admit of a vacuum than of an existence of divers bodies in the same place Seeing a vacuum doth not far differ from nothing and since the action of nothing is more weak than the action of a doubled Being And since nature began of nothing it is neerer to nothing than to a double Being And so nature doth more skirmish against a double Being For Gun-powder over-turns Mountains Mines and Cities But an example of the same force is never offered in behalf of a vacuum But besides I again thus prove an ordinary vacuum in nature in the air Let a piece of Candle be placed in the midst of the bottom of a dish being fastened to its melted Tallow in the bottom Let it burn and let water be powred round about it to two or three fingers space but let a deep Cupping-glasse be set over the flame the flame appearing three fingers space out of the water so that the mouth of the Glasse set over it may stand upon the bottom of the dish Thou shalt straightway see the place of the air in the aforesaid free Glasse but the water by a certain sucking to be drawn upwards and to ascend into the Glasse in the place of diminished air and at length the flame to be smothered wherein many things come to hand First true things 1. And in the first place it is not to be doubted but that the flame is a kindled smoak 2. That that smoak is the body Gas 3. That a smoakiness or fuliginous vapour doth ascend from the top of the burnt smoak 4. That one part of the Tallow or Wax is easily extended into ten thousand fold as much as it self From whence I conclude that the place of the air ought not to be lessened by the flame but necessarily to be increased unless some place in the air were empty which is lessened Nor otherwise doth it want an absurdity that an Element should be brought to nothing or consumed For indeed a Gun or fiery Mines or Burroughs should not work those monstrous things of our age nor the breakings asunder of the hardest and greatest stones in Mines unless a small quantity of powder being kindled as it were at one moment did send forth ten thousand times as much flame as it self at least which flame cannot be stayed with the former place of the Powder it rather breaks asunder all things than that smoak should pierce smoak or flame flame 5. To which particulars the extension of the air through the heat of the flame hath access and not a pressing of it together as it otherwise appeares to the common sort Lastly let a sulphurated Toreh or Candle be hung up by a thred in a Glasse-bottle but let there be some small quantity of water in the Bottle and let the Bottle be exactly stopped with the bark of the Cork-Tree that nothing breath out Thou shalt see the flame and smoak of the Sulphur to fill up the whole floore or space of the Bottle in which the air is and at length the fire to be quenched Yet that there is not made a lessening of the air nor a sucking of the water upwards because the water ought to be put in the place of the air so that sucking here should make no gain nor should recompence the defect in the air Well indeed because the cover being opened a sucking is discerned But the flame doth not so toughly stick on the Candle that it may be for the lifting up so great a weight of water which flame is dispersed from its Candle by the least blast And so the flame doth not immediately lift up the water but a sucking being caused through a consuming of some part in the air doth lift up the water and for many dayes the water remains as yet advanced after the extinguishing of the flame Wherefore I have meditated that the air hath pores or little holes which should suffer a violent constriction of the air in the Pipe and some certain naturall annihilation in the dish But that the Air should be co-thickned in the Glasse by reason of the heat flame and smoak that opposeth Mathematicall Demonstration And the Instrument sheweth that by how much the degrees of the encompassing air are measured the heat doth enlarge but not contract the air Therefore the aforesaid objection opposeth the supposed position wherein it is granted that there is made an addition of matter in the Air by a new matter of flame and smoak But if it be said that there is something in the Air that is inflameable which is consumed by the flame of the Candle Now a new absurdity ariseth To wit that some body is plainly annihilated or burnt up by the flame and in burning up that it is not enlarged Again by supposing something to be wasted away it is at leastwise necessary that that inflameable matter be turned into nothing or into something But it is the property of fire that in burning up it doth extend every thing that is inflameable but doth not presse that thing together As before I have taught by Gun-powder But if we say that the air in the Glasse is lessened by the flame now I have what I intended To wit that there is in the air something that is lesse than
should go to ruine no otherwise than as doth very often happen in the burrowes of Mines Where those that dig Mettalls are stifled not through want of air abounding nor also alwayes through a choaking poyson but especially for that the air in the Burrowes being filled by the Gas of the Minerall is not renewed And so from hence it also happens that the Lights and Lamps are presently of their own accord extinguished together with the diggers Wherefore they do beat the Burrowes very much and do draw out the air that is filled up with the exhalation with divers Engines and powre on them and inspire into them new air But the air doth refuse too much exhalation no otherwise than as the water doth of the air and any other thing violently coupled with it in the same Mine Let there be a brassen Bottle in whose bottom let the water be A the air B the neck C the hole of the Bottle D by which with a Sypho or Pipe the air may be strongly snuffed up But then let the neck be rowled about that it may violently withhold the air under it I say therefore that while the neck is again swiftly rowled about that it gives utterance to the air For it shall not onely snuffe up the air B that is pressed together but also together with it A shall wholly fly upwards with a great force The air therefore doth sustain an unvoluntary co-pressing of its emptiness therefore it also brings up the water A with it which surely sheweth that a vacuum is more pleasing than the pressing together of the air because it is that which approacheth to the unvoluntary penetration of a body Now therefore of a vacuum an impossible thing with Aristotle is made a thing ordinarily required of nature Notwithstanding those porosities of the air however they may be actually void of all matter nevertheless they have in them a Being a Creature that is some reall thing not a fiction nor a naked place onely but that which is plainly a middle thing between a matter and an incorporeall Spirit and neither of the two I say of the number of those things which in the beginning of the Chapter concerning forms I have denied to be a substance or accident It is the Magnall or sheath of the air the which seeing it hath not in created things its like therefore it refuseth to be made manifest by that which is like unto it The Magnall indeed is not Light but a certain form assisting the air and as it were its companion and as it were conjoyning to it by a certain Wedlock An assistant I say not conjoyned to its essence and therefore an associate in its pores To wit by this the Blas of the Stars is immediately and without hinderance extended on every side and by a momentany motion but not by a thousand generations of a thousand kindes finished as it were at one onely moment as oft as the light or heavenly influences do strike inferiour bodies These very things are the fables of the Schooles to wit least they should be compelled to grant one accident to passe over from subject into subject they had rather that a thousand generations of a thousand particular kindes of light should be made in an instant while the Sun doth at so far a distance shake his beams at us For that which the Schooles do in this respect determine to be as an unpossible thing I will teach to be the ordinary course of nature in the entrance of Magnum oportet Now therefore the natures of Gas and Blas are sufficiently manifest and which way Blas may descend unto us The Doctrines of the Schooles concerning the windes are to be added First of all the Schooles of Aristotle do teach that the winde is a dry exhalation but not an air lifted up from the Earth by the vertue of heat the which when it is hindered by a Cloud from climbing upwards it as furious runneth down side-wayes and effecteth the strength or force of so great an heap or attempt As if it had lost its antient lightness through the first repulse of the Clouds and that therefore being mad it runs down sidewayes as if there were a continuall co-weaving of the Clouds nor should there in any wise be granted any entrance and any passage to the climbing exhalation being once repulsed by so small a Cloud as though a Bottle filled with air and pressed down under the water but ascending should finde a hand against it and therefore should run down sidewayes thorow the water and as if it had lost its former endeavour upwards for the future so as having forgotten to climbe upwards although it should not finde a continuall Cloud it should wish thenceforward rather to be carried sidewayes For neither have they considered that the side motion of the windes ought to be broken or weakened and also of necessity to be more feeble than its motion upwards and so that the winde is more able to beat down high Towers than to remove or scatter the vaporous Cloud about it Surely in all things I wonder at the subscribed sluggishness of the Schooles through a custom of assenting For Aristotle writes that the Salt of the Sea which notwithstanding he thought to be co-eternall with the World hath its originall from an exhalation he understood not an exhalation in the least because it is that which is volatile or swift of flight and the Salt of the Sea a fixed body for neither can Sea water otherwise sweet fix the volatility or swiftness of an exhalation any more than Sal Armoniac it self also all Metcors and especially windes yea the Earthquake and Comets whereof that of the year 1618 was a thousand times bigger than the Earth likewise small Stones Rocks great Stones he hath dedicated to exhalations alone A suitable Store-house whence so great exhalations should proceed hath been wanting to his Dreams And nevertheless the Schooles subscribe to those trifles nor do they awake out of their drowsie sleep but while Aristotle doth expresly spurn against the faith But Galen thinketh the winder or blast to be vapours lifted up out of the water and Lakes by the force of heat but now and then that it is an air resolved out of a mixt body But both of them he salth to be cold being likened to decrepite age to inbred heat failing and to cold effects surely he stumbling in all and every thing hath hugely spread his childish Dreams for truth For in the time of Galen the art of distilling was not yet made known who never saw rose-Rose-water as neither Argentvive or Quick-silver For he had badly read Diascorides together with Pliny he writing that Quick-silver by reason of its great weight cannot be detained in Leather not in wooden Boxes but is to be kept onely in Cases of Mettall As if one onely ounce thereof should weigh more than an ounce of Lead Wherefore Galen must needs have been deeply and heartily ignorant of the
oftner because the number of Commissionary smitings did contain the number of Victories and repeated turns of the enemy as yet to be beaten Therefore for the keeping of peace with my friend I have explained my self I confess I say willingly that I would not search into Divine Mysteries But the manner and meanes which God useth in the Earth-quake I have attained onely by conjecture But neither at length have I desired to make these things known nor that I might be taken notice of as a brawler but that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom may arise from the trembling of the Earth D. Streithagen Cannon of Hemsberg in his Germane Flourish hath writ down a Chronograph or Verse of the time of this Earthly trembling by reason of its unwonted strangeness and largeness of the places Smitten the 4th of April was the Earth with tumult wide From which unwonted slaughter covered Bodies down do slide From the face of the Lord the Earth was moved from the face of the God of Jacob. CHAP. XVIII The fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mixtures 1. Why the Earth hath seemed not to be a primary Element 2. That the fire is neither a substance nor an accident 3. That all visible things are materially of water onely 4. Why the place of the Air which is called the middle Region is cold 5. What the three first things of the Chymists may be 6. Some Bodies are not reduced into the three first things 7. The unconstancie of Paracelsus 8. The errour of the Chymists 9. The reducing of the three first things into the water of a Cloud is demonstrated 10. The swift or volatile Salt of simple Bodies may be fixed by co-melting 11. The three first things were not before but are made in seperating and that indeed a new Creature 12. The Oil of things is nothing but water the seed of the compound Body being abstracted or withdrawn 13. The same thing is proved in a live Coal 14. What the wilde Gas of things is 15. How a Gas is bred in the Grape 16. The Gas of Wines 17. Why much of the Grape may hurt 18. That the Gas of new Wine is not the Spirit of Wine 19. An erroneous opinion of Paracelsus 20. A twofold Sulphur in Tinne from whence the lightness of the same 21. Gun-powder proves Gas 22. Some things do mutually transchange themselves into Gas. 23. The mutuall unsufferableness of some things that are melted together 24. That Gas materially is not Earth or Air. 25. The same thing by a supposition of a falshood and seven absurdities 26. That a mixt Body is not converted into an Element by the force of an Element the Conquerour 27. A Handicraft operation of the Liquor Alkahest 28. Gas is wholly of the Element of Water 29. It is proved by the Handicraft operation of a live Coal 30. By Handicraft operation that every Vegetable is totally and materially of water alone 31. So a stone is wholly of water 32. Fishes and all fatness are wholly of water 33. Every smoak is onely of water 34. All Sulphurs are reduced into a smoak and Gas but these are reduced into water 35. Why fire cannot make Air of Water 36. Ashes and Glasse are of Water alone 37. The Gas of Salts is nothing but an un-savourie Water 38. The Gas of fruits is nothing but water 39. The Comments or devises of Schollars concerning exhalations 40. Naturall Philosophie is in darkness without the Art of the fire 41. The spirit or breath of life is materially the Gas of the Water 42. The sweat before death is not sweat but the melting of a Liquor 43. By an Endemicall or common Gas we are easily snatched away I Have said that there are two primary Elements the Air and the Water because they do not return into each other but that the Earth is as it were born of water because it may be reduced into water But if water be changed into an Earthy Body that happens by the force or virtue of the Seed and so it hath then put of the simpleness of an Element For a flint is of water which is broken asunder into Sand. But surely that Sand doth lesse resist in its reducing into water than the Sand which is the Virgin-Earth Therefore the Sand of Marble of a Gemme or Flint do disclose the presence of the Seed But if the Virgin-earth may at length by much labour be brought into water and if it was in the beginning created as an Element yet it seemes then to have come down to something that is more simple than it selfe and therefore I have called those two Primary ones I have denied the fire to be an Element and Substance but to be death in the hand of the Artificer given for great uses I say an artificial Death for Arts which the Almighty hath created but not a natural one But now I take upon me to demonstrate that Bodies which are believed to be mixt are materially the fruits of water onely neither that they have need of the Wedlock of another Element to wit that Bodies whether they are dark or clear sound or fluide bodies of one and the same kindâ or those that are unlike Suppose them to be Stones Sulphurs Mettalls Hony wax Oils a Bone the Brain a Grisle Wood Barke Leaves lastly that all things and all particular things are wholly reduced into a water altogether without savour and so that they do consist and are contained in simple water onely For indeed most of those things are destroyed by fire and do straightway of their own accord give their part to the water which part although it after some sort resembles the nature of the composed body at length at least-wise the contagion of that composed Seed being taken away that water or Mercury of things returns into the simple and un-savoury water of rain So Oils and fats being seperated by the fire a little of the Alcali Salt being added to them do at length assume the nature of Soap and depart into Elementary water yea whatsoever things are inflamed by an open fire in the very entertainment of the Clouds are reduced voluntarily into water For such was the necessity of the cold of that place as I have already taught above that whatsoever things should rise up thither from the lower places should forget their seeds by the mortall cold in that place and their sub-division into a Gas of almost infinite Atomes For Salt Sulphur and Mercurie or Salt Liquor and Fat are in the most speciall particular kindes or Species not indeed as certain universall Bodies which are common to all particular kindes but they are similar or like parts in composed bodies being distinguished by a three-fold variety according to the requirance of the seeds Therefore if the seminall properties shall the more toughly remain in the three things now seperated then by things being admixed with them the impressions of those properties are taken away and estranged
From whence they do afterwards passe into the Element of water But some Bodies do refuse to be divided into the three things at length the Liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus being adjoyned they decay into a Salt and that Salt is destroyed by passing over into an un-savory water The Art of the fire being despised hath made these things to be unknown in the Schooles But I have not onely a War with those that are ignorant of nature the despisers of the searching mistress of Philosophy but also with Paracelsus the Standard-defender of the Chymists for whom when it was hard to have declined from the beaten Road he sometimes would have those three things to consist in the co-mingling of the Elements and sometimes he thought the Elements of the World themselves not to be bodies but the empty places or wombes of things But in another place he denieth all of whatsoever is corporeall to be Elementary but the Masse onely of the three first things And again in another place he hath taught that the very Elements yea the flame of the fire do reduce themselves by a Method into the four Elements And so they cease to be naked Elements in the place of three principles But the flame it selfe which is nothing but a kindled smoak being enclosed in a Glasse straightway in the very instant perisheth into nothing So that a Glasse made in a glassen Fornace with a bright burning fire and being shut could never contain any thing besides Air. He being unconstant to himself hath made himself ridiculous and all those particular things in fit places are to be refuted by me For the Chymists have hitherto believed that the Elements do lay hid in the three first things For they had seen Air and Fire in burning Wax to fly away together and thereupon they have thought that the water doth in part challenge to its self its air and fire But they have thought that the Earth flies away with the smoak Which thing they have likewise supposed concerning those things which do leave a Coal and ashes behinde them placing ashes in the room of earth But they have believed that the fruits of the Earth and Mineralls are indeed as it were the allied pledges of the water but they have believed them to be stirred up by the Wedlock of the other three Elements but I come to the hand Let there be Aqua vitae excellently well purified from its dregs which burns Oily bodies through its whole Homogeniety or sameliness of kinde for that Aqua vitae by Salt of Tartar which is near akin to it is presently changed as to its 16th part into Salt and all the rest becomes a simple Elementary water And one onely part is made a Salt although it be of the same kinde with the other and so is equally reducible into water because that in actions of bodies and spirits under their dissolving there are made divers coagulations of the dissolver In like manner also in the operation of the fire Salts which before were volatile or swift of flight may partly be co-melted into a fixed Alcali no otherwise than as Salt-peter and Arsenick being both volatile things may be fixed by co-melting Therefore the three first things are not onely seperated but are sharpened changed do vary the nature of the composed body and so are made by the fire a new creature not indeed being created anew but being brought forth by the fire So a sile is no more the earth of the Potter but now a Stone So ashes and smoak are no more Wood nor an Alcali nor Sand Glasse Because the force of the fire doth not produce seeds but by consuming doth transchange them and by seperating alters all particular bodies Moreover none dares to say that the Salt of Tartar in the case proposed doth produce an Element out of that which is not an Element as if a Salt were the Father of the Element of water but the Sulphur of the Wine the seed being taken away doth leave the matter of the Aqua vitae to be such as it is But the part which may be fixed in the Salt of Tartar which hath taken to it the condition of a Salt was fat it being before wholly capable of burning volatile and of the same condition with its fellowes Immediately therefore after the destruction of the seed of the Sulphur of the Wine it is nothing but an Elementary water So every Oil is materially simple water which a small quantity of seed translates into a combustible Masse and playes the maske of a Sulphur And every seed is according to a Chymicall computation scarce the 8200 part of its body which part if the fire shall change into families it shall not be hard for it also to return into water For the fire burning the fatness into Air it wholly flies up to the Clouds and there doth sometimes grow together through the cold of the place into water For Fishes do by the force or virtue of an inbred seed transchange simple water into fat bones and their own fleshes it s no wonder therefore that Fishes materially are nothing but water transchanged and that they return into water by art I will also shew by Handicraft-demonstration that all Vegetables and fleshes do consist onely of water but all things if not immediately at least-wise with an assistant they do again assume the nature of water Also every small Stone Rockie or great Stone and Clay doth passe into a fixed Alcali of its own accord or by things adjoyned for an Alcali is that which before was not a Salt yet its combustion being finished it is a residing Salt So ashes is by its own proper Alcali made a meer Salt But every Alcali the fatness being added is reduced into a watery Liquor which at length is made a meer and simple water as is to be seen in Soaps the Azure-stone c. as oft as by fixed adjuncts it layes aside the seed of fatness For otherwise it is not proper to the fire to make a water rather a flame but onely to seperate things of a different kinde Therefore if water may be made out of Sulphurs and not by the proper transmutation of fire it must needes be that Sulphurs are begotten of meer water For truly neither is water seperated from Oils but that is truly made of these because the water was not in it by a formall act but onely materially to wit the mask of the seeds being withdrawn Moreover every coal which is made of the co-melting of Sulphur and Salt working among themselves in time of burning although it be roasted even to its last day in a bright burning Furnace the Vessel being shut it is fired indeed but there is true fire in the Vessel no otherwise than in the coal not being shut up yet nothing of it is wasted it not being able to be consumed through the hindering of its eflux Therefore the live coal and generally whatsoever bodies do not immediately depart into
Earth or Air it also followes that the convertings of the Sulphur Coal and Salt-peter into a Gas or into Earth are not the ultimate as neither the true Elements of Air and Earth Lastly let us measure these things in a rusticall sense as if the aforesaid simple bodies should be sometimes turned into Air but sometimes into Earth because there was a mutuall transmutation of the Elements into each other But at leastwise the agreed on opinion of the Schooles doth resist these determinations to wit because a mixt body in its corrupting ought to restore the Elements whereof it is composed in generation 2. Because a mixt body consisting almost wholly of the Element of Air the same cannot almost wholly consist of the Element of Earth 3. Because the conversion of the Elements is made by the action of one Element and its superiority over the other 4. But not that the forms of mixt bodies or fruits suffering by the inward Elements have power to turn one Element into another 5. Next because the fire cannot dispose the mixt body that it should be sometimes turned into Air after inflaming but another time wholly into the shape of Earth 6. At length because that in the corrupting of mixt bodies there is not an immediate converting of one Element into another 7. Last of all because the variety of converting a mixt body into Elements doth not depend on the will of man who is able onely to joyn active things to passive to wit whose activity is in the victory it selfe of the superiour Element Which kinde of Element man neither bringeth nor hath he it in his hand That may here stand for a position against them which hath been sufficiently demonstrated in the Chapter concerning the birth of forms To wit that the fire is neither an Element nor indeed a substance Which things being supposed it followes that the three aforesaid simple things in Gun-powder are not to be reduced from air into air while they fly away into Gas neither that they are to be reduced from Earth into Earth while the Salt-peter doth by a certain Sulphur incline into Earth but the Coal and Sulphur are changed through waters into a Rockie Stone and into Earth And so the mixt suffering body is not turned into an Elementary nature by the action of a proper and conquering Element as hath been thought Wherefore since it hath been already sufficiently demonstrated that air and water are by no possibility of Nature Ages or Art to be transchanged into each other It altogether followes that while those three simple things do wholly yield themselves sometimes into the likeness of Earth but sometimes into the form of Air they are not true Earth or true Air but such an Earth and such a Gas which by their last reducement do return into water dissembling a strange maske according as they follow the guidance of forreign seeds For I have known a water which I list not to make manifest by meanes whereof all Vegetables are exchanged into a distillable juyce without any remainder of their dregs in the bottom of the glasse which juyce being distilled the Alcalies being adjoyned it is wholly reduced into an un-savory Elementary water Neither indeed is that a wonder For I will shew in its place that all Vegetables do materially arise wholly out of the Element of water alone If therefore every mixt body doth at length return into meer Rain-water it must needes be that every Gas proceeding out of mixt bodies is materially of the Element of water Therefore the Gas which by the fire exhaleth out of a live Coal although it be enflamed yet materially it is nothing but water which very thing I have shewen above in the handicraft-operation concerning Aqua vitae 2 Macchab. 1. Nor else-where is there mention made in the holy Scriptures of a thick water which should be a perpetuall fire perhaps not unlike to ours For I have put equall parts of an Oaken Coal and of a certain water in a glasse Hermetically shut in the space of three dayes the whole Coal was turned by the luke-warmth of a Bath into two transparent Liquors divers in their ground and colour which being distilled together by Sand in the second degree of heat the bottom of the glasse appeared so pure as if it were newly brought out of a glassen Furnace Straightway the two Liquors do first ascend through the Bath both being of equall weight with the masse of the Coal But the dissolving Liquor remaines in the bottom being of equall weight and virtues with it self Moreover those two Liquors being mixt with a small quantity of Chalk do at the third distilling ascend almost in their former weight and having all the quality of Rain-water Therefore the Gas of a Coal which doth not otherwise exhale but in an open and fired Vessel together with its ashes are materially nothing but meer water For the Seminall property of the composed body which remains in the Gas by the force of cold and maturity of dayes dieth and the Gas returneth into its antient water But I have learned by this handicraft-operation that all Vegetables do immediately and materially proceed out of the Element of water onely For I took an Earthen Vessel in which I put 200 pounds of Earth that had been dried in a Furnace which I moystened with Rain-water and I implanted therein the Trunk or Stem of a Willow Tree weighing five pounds and at length five years being finished the Tree sprung from thence did weigh 169 pounds and about three ounces But I moystened the Earthen Vessel with Rain-water or distilled water alwayes when there was need and it was large and implanted into the Earth and least the dust that flew about should be co-mingled with the Earth I covered the lip or mouth of the Vessel with an Iron-Plate covered with Tin and easily passable with many holes I computed not the weight of the leaves that fell off in the four Autumnes At length I again dried the Earth of the Vessel and there were found the same 200 pounds wanting about two ounces Therefore 164 pounds of Wood Barks and Roots arose out of water onely Therefore a Coal since it is wholly of water if it be reduced in any Fountain into a stone it shall not be able to be by water changed into a stone unless also that whole stone be materially meer water For Fishes as they do make of waters much grease so likewise all fat with the Alcali Salt is made a Soap which being afterwards distilled doth return almost wholly into water the which when as by adjuncts it is spoiled of the seed of the Soap it becometh an un-savory water But every smoak is partly the volatile Salt of the composed body being preserved from inflammation by reason of the co-mingling of a water that flies away and is partly an Oil which through the swiftness of flying away escapes combustion For so the sharp Liquor of Sulphur drawn forth by a Campane
or glassen Bell doth shew that a great part of the Sulphur being untouched by the flame ascended upwards the which is again seperated safe from that Liquor by rectifying For Sulphurs or fats although they are many times distilled by any degree of the fire yet they do alwayes remain fats and even do retain their nature as long as they do enjoy or obtain the seed of their composed Body The which when as the flame or artificiall death hath touched they straightway flie over into Gas but not into water For that every Gas doth as yet retain some condition of its composed body For smoaks of the flame do differ by their generall and speciall kindes which surely should not be if they should immediately depart into their first Element The fire indeed destroyeth simply but it generates nothing for why seeing it wants the power of a seed and those things which it cannot destroy those it at leastwise seperateth or leaveth untouched and in this respect they are called fixt bodies But the fire doth not prevail in that as to exchange that which is in it self materially water into Air for otherwise it should have the seed of the Air. It is also sufficiently manifest before that water is made air or air water by no help of art or nature Therefore Wood since it is wholly of water its ashes and likewise Glasse shall be of water But that the Gas of Salts is nothing but water the following Handicraft-operation proveth Take equall parts of Salt-peter Vitriol and Alume all being dried and conjoyned together distill a Water which is nothing else than a meer volatile Salt Of this take four ounces and joyn an ounce of Sal armoniac in a strong Glassen Alembick confirmed by a Cement of Wax Rosin and Powder of Glasse being powred most hotly on it straightway even in the cold a Gas is stirred up and the Vessel how strong soever it be bursteth with a noyse But if indeed thou shalt leave a chap or chink in the juncture of the receiving Vessel and after voluntary boylings up thou shalt distill the residue thou shalt finde a water somewhat sharp the which by a repeated distillation and an additament of Chalke is turned into Rain-water Therefore one part of the Salts yielded into water but the other part into Gas But the Salts that fled away by a Gas are of the same kinde of nature with those that were reduced into water therefore the Gas of Salts is materially nothing but water But the Gas of fruits I have likewise already shewen to be nothing but water as arising immediately out of water So the Raisin of the Sun being distilled is wholly reduced by art into an Elementary water which yet being new and once wounded or bruised much new Wine and Gas is allured or fetched out If therefore the whole Grape before a ferment be turned into a simple water but the ferment being brought a Gas is stirred up this Gas also must needes be water Seeing the disposition of the ferment cannot form air of that which is materially nothing but water Therefore the unrestrainable Gas of the Vessel breaks forth abroad into the air untill it being sufficiently confirmed and by the cold of the place spoiled also of the properties of its composed body passeth over into its first matter and in the air the seperater of the waters it recovereth its antient and full disposition of the Element of water But exhalations which in the account of the Schooles are the daily matter of Windes Mists Comets Mineralls Rockie Stones saltness of the Sea Earth-quakes and of all Meteors seeing they have no pen-case or receptacle in nature nor matter sufficient for so great daily things and those for so great an heap they are wondrous dreams and unskilfully proportioned to their effects And therefore I passe by these unsavourinesses or follies of the Schooles by pittying of them At leastwise it followes that if Rockie Stones if all Mineralls do proceed from exhalations and being now fixed do resist the Agent which should bring them again into an exhalation there shall be in the remaining Earth matter for new exhalations producing effects of so great moment Especially because scarce any thing exhaleth out of the saltness of the Sea and such is the aptness or disposition of heat that it scarce stirs up exhalations unless it hath first lifted up all the water by vapours What matter therefore shall be sufficient even for daily Windes alone Truly it is altogether impossible for the Schooles to have known the nature and likewise the differences causes and properties of Bodies for as many as have set upon Philosophy without the art of the fire have been hitherto deluded with Paganish Institutions At length I have written touching long life that the arteriall Spirit of our life is of the nature of a Gas Which thing is seen in the trembling of the heart swooning and fainting For how much doth it die to a lively colour to a vitall light and to a swollen or full habit of flesh and the countenance it self being the more wrinckled or withered how quickly doth it decay straightway after the aforesaid passions For the Spirit which before did as it were unite all things by a pleasing redness doth straightway fly away and being subdued by a forreign Air is changed For truly seeing the Archeus is in it self a Gas of the nature of a Balsamick Salt if it shall finde the air of another Salt to be against it or in its way even as Sal armoniac when it meetes with the Spirit of Saltpeter it is subject too easily and forthwith to be blown away or dispersed through the pores as having forgotten to perform its duties and office of the Family For neither is it gathered into drops because it is prepared of an arteriall bloudiness If any thing of sweat at the time of faintings and death doth exhale that is the melting of the venall bloud but not of the arteriall bloud Therefore the vitall Gas because it is a light and a Balsam preserving from corruption from the first delineation of generation it began to be made suitable to the light of the Sun But after the aforesaid failings of the Spirit the in-bred Spirits of the other members as it were smoaking are again kindled by the Sun-like light of the heart even as the smoak of a Candle put out touching at the flame of another Candle doth carry this flame to the extinguished Candle by a Mean Seeing that the Spirit of our life since it is a Gas is most mightily and swiftly affected by any other Gas to wit by reason of their immediate co-touchings For neither therefore doth any thing thereupon operate more swiftly on us than a Gas as appeares in the Dogvault or that of the Sicilians in the Plague in burning Coals that are smothered and in persumes for many and oftentimes men are straightway killed in the Burrowes of Mineralls yea in Cellars where strong Ale or
meer Fire with every thing requisite thereunto And then that the same Light of the Sun falling upon the Icy Glasse of the Moon doth loose the property of his own heat and is made a cold light Which comes not to passe if it shall fall upon Ice Glasse Water a white Wall c. Therefore the Moon hath powers or faculties whereby she altereth the Sun-beames And that cold Blas ought to be of the nature of her own light if between the Agent and Patient a co-resemblance ought to interpose For truly another cold object re-percussing or smiting back the Sun-beames cannot therefore change these into cold beames Truly neither heat cold rough brickle sweet or bitter do act on the Light but onely visible and dark objects therefore the Moon hath a lightsome force or power of her self which as it is such doth act upon the hot light and changeth it into a contrary property What if the Astrologer doth foretell the future Colours of Eclipses do not those Colours promise some certain light proper to the Moon For truly they are not conjectured of from a Mean or vapours because colour cannot be foretold from the quantity of vapours in the calculation of a future Eclipse Therefore let the Colours of the Moon failing of light be the tokens of a light proper unto her And in this the beames of both Lights do differ That the Sun strikes his light by beames in a right line but the Moon doth never respect the Center of the World or the Earth in a right line but her center is alwayes excentrical For she respects the Center of the World onely by accident that is when she is con-centricall with the World And therefore as oft as she is con-centricall in full Moon and new Moon there is an Eclipse Therefore the Dragons Head and Tail are night-points wherein onely the Sun is directly opposed to the Moon in an excentrical Diameter Therefore the Moon-beames do not strike the Earth in a right line but they are dispersed into an excentricall space and so she by way of influence or by the action of government of which in its place displayes her forces on the night or on Nadir the point underneath the Horizon right opposite to our feet whether she accompany the Sun or indeed be estranged from this Sun by a full Diameter For such is the appointment of the Moon which the exundations or Spring-Tides of the Sea do confirm which are wont to be no lesse under the Moon laying hidden than at the full of the same Therefore one end of the Lights is to rule the day and night next another end is to seperate the light from the darkness and another end to seperate the day from the night Neither is that repetition to be imputed to a Solecisme or incongruity For truly the Sun shining or the Moon restoring her Light received from the Sun the Light indeed is sufficiently seperated from the darkness but the Light of the Sun never rules the night as neither doth he shine in the night therefore that the Moon likewise may satisfie her appointment she can never rule the night by a borrowed Light of the Sun Which thing sufficiently appeareth at leastwise while she runs with the Sun by day according as by night Therefore if then also the Moon ought to satisfie the divine intention she must needes have also by all meanes another light whereby she may shine all nights and may rule the night and a far other manner of powring forth her light than that wherein she reflecteth the Light of the Sun Indeed the Moon sends forth her proper displayed Light beyond no lesse than beneath the Hemisphere of the Air Water and Earth which way the supposition of the Center of the Universe maketh or tendeth according to the Opinion of Tycho Yet so that the action of government of light and influence operates more powerfully in the night from whence the Sun is absent the which that he may seperate the day from the night ought to seperate the properties of the Moon from his own although the Moon be conjoyned with him Diseases belonging to the Moon do prove that thing which are exasperated a little before night also at the new of the Moon And so she worketh thorow the bones and Marrowes of those who are shut up in their Bed-chamber which thing is not so proper or natural to the Sun Therefore the Moon doth sometimes make a stronger influence on that part of the Sphere that is opposite unto her than on the part where she is placed This light being unknown to the Antients hath been called an influence But I had rather reserve the sense of the Scripture because it is said The Moon was created to give light by night that is all nights indifferently even so as the Sun gives light by day Therefore that which they have called an influence is the property of the Moones light and that is not to have named a thing from the effect but from the causes The Bat Dormouse Mouse Owl and whatsoever Creatures do distinguish their objects afar off in the night under the thickest darkness and do note the swiftest motions of objects which our eyes can scarce observe at noon-day some of whom although they may bear before them a Grayish or Skie-coloured brightness yet they never enlighten the mean by that brightness that they may see perfectly through it at a far distance Therefore there must needes be some continual light in the thickest night and shut up Den for which lights sake such living Creatures do perfectly see But if it be unperceived by us and yet doth in truth exist it is no wonder if the light proper to the Moon hath deceived our eyes But that it may be plainly made known that night-wandring Animalls do send no light out of their eyes which may be for the enlightning of a medium or mean to know distinctly an object placed afar off and so that those Creatures do see onely for the light of the Moones sake Let a Looking-glasse be placed between the Eye of a living Creature and its object and that under the thickest darkness and surely thou shalt not finde the least reflexion of light in the Glasse yet if thou shalt put a small Candle at the utmost end of a large Hall but if in the other furthest end of the Hall there be a hole thorow which that feeble light may passe into another dark Hall or room in whose end let a Looking-glasse be truly that weak light being shaken by the direct beame of the flame of the Candle is received and will appear in the Glasse yet it is not sufficient for a man to discern any object Therefore much lesse shall the brightness or shining of the Eyes a beam whereof doth not fall and appear in a nigh Glasse be fit to enlighten the mean that they may perfectly discern all things For there is under the Earth a light even at midnight whereby many eyes
feigned whorish appetite of the matter 12. A demonstration of the errour 13. Whence the necessity of things really and principiatively is 14. The Schooles have not taught true Beginnings 15. Some things are corrupted in the Air but other things are preserved 16. Whence the corruption of things is 17. Corruption is onely of the matter 18. What corruption is 19. Corruption is not from privative things contrary to Aristotle 20. Carruption and generation do not reciprocally succeed 21. The unadvisedness of the Schooles 22. What Magnum Oportet may be 23. The Earth but not the Water shall bring forth Thistles and Briars 24. What kinde of digestion there was before sin 25. What is the misery of Thistles 26. Odours and Savours are fundamentall Ferments 27. The errour concerning the eight tasts 28. The three lives their flowings and ebbings thorow the three Monarchies of things 29. Why Warts do perish through the touching of an Apple 30. The foundation or ground of Sympathy 31. The going backwards of life 32. A threefold life of Mineralls 33. Properties are in a place and in the thing placed 34. What the double nothing is in the words The Earth was empty or without form and void 35. It is proved by the Handicraft-operation of a Flint that Light is a Being without a shining light 36. Perceivings are in the Instruments of the Senses 37. Which way the Magnall is serviceable 38. Who are the immediate Citizens of places 39. The originall and progress of Metalls 40. A more manifest progress of life in Metals 41. Whence Mineralls are of so great efficacy 42. The dignity of the Archeus before sin 43. Which are the ambulatory or walking qualities 44. That which the Schooles cry out to be impossible is necessary in nature 45. Whence that errour is 46. Some absurdities following from thence 47. A frivolous Maxim 48. The blindnesses of the Schooles are to be pitied 49. Why the objects of sight do more work in one that is with young 50. Adeptists do walk through the objects of sight 51. Some Speculations in the position of the appearances of Spirits 52. The distinctions of qualities by modern Writers or Philosophers 53. The occasions of Diseases 54. The manner whereby a Hydrophobiaor a Disease causing the fear of water is made 55. The same concerning other poysons 56. The successive alterations of poysons 57. The manner whereby poysons do work 58. Considerations about the activity of poysons 59. The blowing out or extinguishing of life in what manner it happeneth SUrely I have thus at unawares fallen from the Elements into the birth of Forms and there I have distinguished of a fourfold Form diverse in kinde from each other 1. To wit an Essentiall Form 2. A Vitall Form 3. Next a substantiall Form 4. And at length the excellency of a formall Substance I have added for the end or top of nature For when I had explained my Doctrine concerning the Elements I fell by degrees into the History of vitall things and consequently also I perceived my self devolved into the necessities of Diseases and death indeed that I might apply the beginnings of naturall Philosophy to the end of humane appointment Therefore have I come to Magnum Oportet To wit I have come down to the flowings and ebbings of life and so to the hidden calamity of death Wherefore all our consideration of nature shall hereafter become Medicinall For truly Paracelsus being not constant enough to himself stumbled in the finding out of the cause of a Disease in the mean and manner whereby every thing tends to a declining To the clearing up whereof I have already taught before that the fruits which antiquity hath believed to be a heap of Elements are the off-springs of the one Element of water begotten with childe by the seed which disposeth the water to generate in places as it were in wombs For wheresoever the water obtains an Odour it straightway also conceiveth in that very moment a Ferment and after that a seed in the begun disposition of the matter disposed by the Ferment For truly most things are made for the sake of the Odour alone For oft-times the Root stalk pith leaves and History of a whole Plant is born by reason of the flour of the Odour or Odour of the flour and the Odour is the ultimate end of many particular kindes as well in Plants that are for Sauces as in those for Medicines Because out of Sand or simple Earth and Water doth grow nothing at first but a moyst filthiness or mouldiness they contract a putrefaction through continuance or Odours For nothing putrifieth by continnance far under the Earth neither doth a Plant grow in the Sand. But almost nigh the light or day the Odour is putrified by continuance and Leff as brings forth its Plants If one part of mud or dung do putrifie in the Earth it may beget the water with childe in a five fold weight of it self and send forth fruit For the water being void of all Odour unless it shall conceive the Ferment of an Odour in its Sulphur surely it remains in its antient simplicity as Rain-water without fruit Therefore in the deep Pavements of the Earth where there is a departure far from filthiness putrifying and corruption although there be no Leff as yet the waters are got with Childe by a hidden Odour of the place first of all by an unconceivable contagion of a certain Salt straightway they do hasten to the more wealthy Colonies of Fruits and do break out Indeed it s own strange fermentaceous Odour dwells every where which may get the Sulphur of the water with child and sleeping within it may at length grow together As in Mineralls Or being grown together and even over-spread with a thicker Air may grow as in Plants and Creatures that bring for h Eggs or wholly from the beginning the form of the Air doth glister Even as in things that bring forth a living off-spring Therefore the Archeus being now conceived remains every where the keeper of life and the promoter of transmutations and by and by a change of his life doth follow the change thereof to wit from his first life and matter into his last For the Archeusses of things do agree in this as being vitall they do possess a certain Splendor yet they differ as they are unlike fore-runners and Stewards of the Form Yet they do not mutually receive each other least their government be disturbed but for order sake which they do badly explain by the Title of self-love he remains Master who shall be the stronger which way indeed they liberally dispense the Impressions of their Ferment that one may restrain the forreign disquietnesses of his fellow Archeus and may subdue him For even as under the immortall minde the subordinate forms of a bone membrane c. do not perish So also it happens in the transmutations of things Indeed although the food doth by an every way transmutation obtain the form of
not for the food of the spirits as neither for the Bellowes of smoakie vapours For otherwise the looseness of the Artery is uncapable to breath-in sufficient air But the future and prepared swear seeing it is already in it self volatise and presently flowes forth in manner of a Latex or Liquor it doth not require very much labour nor hardening of the Artery for the strength decaying the Pulse is watery before it be creeping Because nature being weakned doth not any longer meditate of great labour but an Apoplectical Pulse is the chief and most hard of the Pulses by far and especially a little before death The Schools will have that to come to pass because there should be the same and an individual necessity and end of the Pulse and breathing As they say the heart will recompence the defect of breathing But the swooning of Virgins in the affects of the womb whose breath is stopt and their strength strong for from thence they do for the most part rise again have their Pulses very small for a reproof of the foregoing Doctrine So likewise the Pulse of those that are diseased in the Lungs is watery and feeble for whom notwithstanding nature ought to be diligent in supplying the penury of breathing But why in an Apoplexy the Pulse is hard and great we must search it from the nature of a disease which I will at sometime profesly touch at in a Book and that of the disease of the Stone Now for the neernesse of the matter I will explain two Aphorisms The first whereof is While Pus or corrupt matter is made the labour and pain is greater than when the Pus is made Every Aposteme ending into corrupt matter doth necessarily contain a sharpnesse which forceth the Venal blood into a clotty Lump And therefore it is afterwards uncapable of transpiration Wherefore nature moveth every stone and stirs up the Arteries and breathing that the Ferments by aire may hinder such an effect And at length she profiting nothing ceaseth from that endeavour For the venal bloud is troublesome to nature not only as it waxeth clotty but as it containeth some forreign thing for else an Aposteme should not be made for it is the property of sharpness to coagulate or curdle every immediate nourishable thing from hence corrupt pus ariseth Therefore Hippocrates spake more rightly than Galen Diseases are not hot or cold c. but soure sharp bitter and brackish For a wound as soon as it feeleth corruption its lips do swell and corrupt Pus is made unless a more violent force do compel a worse thing or the thin matter sanies to wax duggy or curdy But the corrupt pus is called by Idiots A good digestion of a wound that is more rightly to be reckoned a less evil but if the wound be new and fenced by Ballam from corruption corrupt pus happens not thereto But when a sharpnesse the token of putrefaction doth contract or draw the Bottom or Lips of the wound together corrupt matter is made For worms are oft-times plainly to be seen in wounds by reason of corruption In Kitchins if fleshes do begin to corrupt their broaths do wax foure Wherfore every vulnerary or wound potion ought to contain in it a hidden Alcali and indeed a volatile one if it ought to resist the accidents that sprang from the corruption of tartness In as much as every Alcali doth slay all sharpnesse which it toucheth For so indeed the stone of Crabs is a provoker of Urine and vulnerary which is manifest enough For it being steeped in Wine doth after a dayes time savour of a Lixivium The other Aphorisme saith Bellies are by nature hotter in Winter than in Summer Truly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sounds or imports hollownesses not bellies It is a suppositive Aphorisme not agreeable to its neighbour ones nor agreeable to the Genius of the old man In the first place It is false Again for in Winter I eat hot things likewise I do not drink cold things yet after food I am cold within none whereof I feel in Summer For in tangible things I take the touching to be Judge The Schools excuse themselves and say That the outward cold drives our heat inward whence there is a more plentifull digestion First of all I have sufficiently taught elsewhere that digestion is not from heat And then after meat cold is more felt within in Winter than in Summer I confess indeed That all heat is from the vital spirit of the Arterial blood If therefore by cold the spirit be driven inward with the Arterial bloud there shall be perill of choaking and the Pulse should give a token if smoakinesses that are to be expelled do import the use of the Pulse Likewise the Pulse should be greater and swifter in Winter than in Summer If the supposition of the Schools be true But the consequent is false therefore also the supposition But if they will have heat to fly inward alone without the Spirit Now they shall against their wills admit that the same accident doth wander through subjects At length which way should heat go inward unto its own fountain And indeed should that be done generally in all at Winter For whether a sound heart which by reason of the abundance of heat and fear of smoakie vapours should beat from a continual necessity shall not be able by reason of Winter to provide it self of a sufficiency of heat or why doth it not rather cease in beating than that it should by reason of an ordinary want repeat or renew the heat dismissed from it The Schools after their manner leap over these things with a light foot for they say That a greater quantity of nourishment is consumed in Winter than in Summer by reason of the abundance of heat And again they divine a more plentiful heat to be in Winter from a want of the more nourishment For the same thing and that in the same respect should be the cause and effect of the same thing The father and the son before and after in respect of themselves But I blame the air which as oft as it is colder is also nearer to its own natural quality and a more potent seperater of the waters And so by how much the air is colder it doth the more volatilize the venal bloud into a Gas No otherwise than was said concerning Sailers Otherwise the dreams of the Schools do vanish as to the heat of hollow places and Wells by an instrument meting out the qualities of the encompassing air And likewise as concerning the belly of man if it live in a somewhat luke-warm Stew But the instruments of sense cannot exactly distinguish the moments of heat where there is a six-months interval because they themselves remain subject to the alterations of seasons Therefore also the application of sensible objects to the instrument of sense is at a different station deceitful Also stomacks seem more hot in Winter because we want the more nourishment
by a sharp or soure thing and so that a ferment doth inhabit in the stomack which should change all things cast into it although sweet presently into a sowreness Wherefore also all things are sharp which are given to drink to him that wants an appetite as are Oyl of un-ripe Olives Vinegar juice of Citron of Orange Mùstard also Salt and Salt-peter as it hath a spirit in it that causeth hunger and most pleasingly sharp And likewise the Berbery Rasp Cherries Quinces c. In this respect they give content to silk folks that want digestion or concoction Therefore the contemplation of this ferment is so necessary that it is chief in the Government of life and therefore it is to be grieved at that the knowledge thereof is hitherto suppressed in the Schools And although the dryth of the whole body waxeth strong with old age yet we do not wax old unlesse by the penury poverty and extinguishing of some ferments For truly the Stag Crow or Raven Eagle Goose c. in their first yeers of youth are far more dry than we yet they remain alive for some ages yea Youth is voluntarily renewed to the Eagle and Stag. But that digestive ferment is not placed in any kind of sharpness only For neither doth Vinegar or the Broth of Citron leaven or ferment the meal yea neither is leavened meal therefore the ferment of the stomack but this is a sharp hungry stomatical specifical and humane ferment Indeed so specifically distinct throughout all the species of Bruits that it is appropriated to themselves For Mice Dormice and Swine do sooner perish with hunger than they do eat of a Ring-Dove or Wood-Culver But in a man it for the most part aspireth to the largeness of a general kind In the mean time many do abhorr Cheese Wine Milk or do despise other things because they do not digest them And therefore what things soever do strive with our digestion are specifically contrary to the property of that Ferment and do endeavour to oppress the Ferment Therefore the Digestive Ferment is an essential property consisting in a certain vital sharpness or soureness mighty for transmutations and therefore of a specifical property For the Falcon dyeth before he will eat up Bread I have already said elsewhere that if the venal bloud be stilled by whatsoever degree of heat yet it is alwayes thickned waxeth dry and leaves a Coal behind it yet that and the same venal bloud doth wholly exhale by our Ferments with an unsensible transpiration Seeing therefore heat doth alwayes univocally or singly operate it cannot by digesting change the meat into Chyle into bloud into a nourishable liquor and at length banish it by an unsensible efflux without any remainder of it self One only heat cannot I say in a Youth change venal bloud into bones and likewise in the breaking of a bone constrain the venal bloud into a callous matter which in those of ripe yeers and likewise in healthy people doth wholly fly away into exhalations unless besides heat there are other powers knowledges and perceivances the chief effectresses of these things For truly it is proper and natural to heat to consume moisture and to retain the thicker part by drying up For Mice are fed only with meal without drink and do resolve it into their own Juice or Chyle which thing surely is far diverse from the scope of heat Therefore heat is not the Authour of digestion but there is a certain other vitall faculty which doth truly and formally transchange nourishments And that I have designed by the name of Ferments But there are many Ferments in us even as I shall by and by explain concerning digestions But seeing the Stomack doth now and then want a Ferment it is manifest from thence that its own Ferment is not proper to it selfe but that it flowes thither from elsewhere and is inspited And therefore the Spleen doth so rest upon the stomack that Hens have their spleen most unitedly heaped about their stomack and therefore do they also the more strongly digest I do here lay open the blindness of the Schools exceedingly to be admired and bewayled with tears of bloud who have dedicated that Noble bowel of the Spleen for the sink of the worst melancholious excrement by the assistance of which one Bowel we live and do possess life and the golden Kingdoms of Saturn But they have devised that the sharp and black excrement which being now and then seasoned with too much Ferment is rejected by the Spleen by reason of the indisposition of the Bowel is therefore black Choler which things shall hereafter in out Duumvirate and likewise concerning Digestions be made more cleer Moreover before the conclusion of this question we must note that among Physitians there are only four degrees of heat and as many of cold in Simples to wit from the temperate degree even unto Causticks and Escharrers because they treat only of a virtual and potencial quality the which I shall sharply touch in its place elsewhere For therefore the fourth degree of heat is with Physitians in the nature of things and temperate as to the touching But the Phylosophers do measure heat according to the sire and so even to the fire they feign eight degrees whereof the fifth sixth and seaventh they have not yet designed because men are wont to believe their positions They will have the eighth to be only in the Elements and into this they have believed the passage of the Elements to be for they supposed to have proved something in the fire as if Kitchin-fire were an Element and never elsewhere But I have already before demonstrated this whole opinion to be of no value First of all it is ridiculous that they have made the degree of heat in the fire equall to the cold of the water to the moisture of the air and to the dryth of the earth Wherein they being notably deluded neither therefore have they bravely shewn the same degrees to be so violent elsewhere as in fire Indeed in this eighth degree they affirm That the Elements do destroy devoure and consume each other no otherwise than as fire doth consume wood And then he Chymists after the custome of Physitians have made only four degrees in the fire it self taking little care to themselves touching the other Elementary qualities because they had enslaved themselves only to the Art of the fire which degrees indeed they distinguished so that the first is from a luke-warmth under a wandring Latitude even unto the fire of sublunation or cleering up of Oylie spirits But the other from hence even to the sublunation of dry spirits And then a third is even unto an obscure fierynesse But the last is even unto the utmost power of the flame of a Reverbery or striking back But I for a more cleer doctrine do in Chymicals distinguish the degrees that the first may be where the greatest cold is more remiss or slack For I who conceive
Chymistry to be the Chamber-maid and emulating Ape and now and then the Mistriss of nature do subject the whole of nature unto Chymical speculation Therefore the second degree in nature may be heat as is that of water not yet frozen The third is where it is remisly cold even as Well water Otherwise absolute heat is deceived at our touching which is luke-warm and it is thought to be cold whatsoever doth heat lesse than it self And seeing the touching is more or lesse hot it makes and unconstant token or signification of heat At length a fourth degree is that of a gentle luke-warmth The fifth is now luke-warm The sixth is ours The seaventh is now Feverish The eighth is of a May Sun The ninth is distillatory and that which now overcomes the touching A tenth distilleth with boyling up The eleventh sublimes Sulphur and dry spirits A twelfth doth melt and sublime the fire-stone The thirteenth is in a somewhat brown fierynesse The fourteenth is a bright burning fierynesse The fifteenth Lastly is the ultimate vigour of the Bellows and Reverbery Lastly Although heat and cold are real qualities and do undergo degrees yet moisture and drinesse are not to be considered but in their own Concrete or composed body and therefore neither do they constitute qualitative degrees but only quantitative ones Because moisture in one only drop is as deeply moist in dry white earth as in its own Element because moist and dry do co-mingle themselves in their root neither do they mutually enter and pierce each other And therefore neither do they mutually dispose of and affect each other formally For those kind of appropriations do agree to seeds but not to Elements Therefore moisture and driness do not admit of degrees neither therefore do they change as neither do they alter each other Because properly they are not qualities in the abstract but qualified bodies themselves But heat and cold do mutually pierce each other throughout their least parts and do break and graduate each other And therefore it is no wonder that the Schools have remained so dumb in the degrees of moisture and drinesse For to the air that there is a moisture heightned unto eight degrees but to the water that the same is remiss or temperate to wit to the fourth degree Lastly That driness is heightned in the earth to eight but remiss in the fire unto four degrees But these trifles of Complexions as well in Elements as in Bodies which they have hitherto believed to be mixt of the Elements have fell to dung being on every side already sore shaken by a manifold necessity of going to ruine CHAP. XXVIII The threefold Digestion of the Schools 1. The generall scope of this Book 2. The first digestion in the stomack 3. The first Region of the Body 4. Two things are to be admired in this work 5. Another digestion and second region 6. The third digestion 7. The last Region of the Body 8. The forgetfulnesse of the Schools 9. The state of Growth IT is not enough to have shewn that there are not four Elements in nature as neither the material mixtures of them and Complexions and Strifes resulting from thence Lastly Not their Congresses or Combates embraces of humors feigned from thence and the madness of these But that contrarieties sprung from thence and the abounding of humors in the Body are the meer dreams of the Gentiles brought into Medicine and even till now adored by the Schools Neither is it enough that I have shewn elsewhere that the three-first things are to be banished from the rank of diseases and cures Likewise to have refuted the causality of the Stars in healing also to have hissed out Winds to have rejected the Consumptions of radical moisture as vain terrours Last of all to have expulsed Catarrhs and the hard and new invention of Tartarous humors and so to have shewn that a disease as well in the general as in the particular hath hitherto lain hid from the Schools and consequently that mortall men do languish under a conjectural Art as yet fundamentally unknown unless I shall even discover the proper causes of Diseases And seeing the causes of the most inward enemies are for the most part intimate or most inward I will before all things propose a history of the functions or offices but after that done I will demonstrate some principles of nature necessary to be known hitherto unheard of The Schools affirm That the meat and drink are by the force of heat transchanged in the stomack into a liquor the which by reason of its likeness to Barley Cream they have called Chyle But they say That afterward this Chyle is by the veins inserted in and accompanying the stomack and whole guidance of the Bowels therefore being annexed by the mediating Mesentery which in the room of a third Coat doth cloath encompasse and involve the Bowels by little and little sucked forward and drawn inward But that the more grosse remaning part is left in the Bowels as it were unprofitable dross to be expelled thorow the Fundament Indeed this first coction they have called the first of the three digestions And so that the first Region of the Body begins from the mouth but to be terminated in one part in the fundament but in the other part in the hollow of the Liver Two things sufficiently admirable do concur herein To wit that in a few houres hard meat is resolved into juyce and that the veins are terminated into the bowels by their utmost mouths that by these I say they suck thorow as much Liquor every day as is cast in and made But that they do not suck to them any thing of a blast more subtile than that Cream yet the bowels are not found porous or holie in life more than in death Nevertheless the whole Chyle passeth thorow the veins of the Mesentery into the Liver Wherein they say the whey of the venal bloud is again seperated for Urine which passeth thorow to the Reins but they will have the more corpulent Cream to be changed in the Liver into venal bloud For in the first digestion that which is more hard and thick is excluded But in the other the thick is retained the transparent part being secluded Therefore the second Region and Shop of the Body begins from the very Body of the Liver and is terminated in the ultimate branches of the hollow vein And then in the third place the bloud falling down out of the veins and being snatched into the nourishment of the solid parts is by degrees perfected and transchanged into a humour which they call secondary And that they divide into four degrees of affinity before it being truly informed be admitted into the solidity of the sound parts Therefore in this alimentary humour is bestowed the labour of the third and highest digestion And therefore they call this last shop of the Body the habit of the Body and do forget the Bowels The which indeed do also
the proportion of the dregs and sharpness But red French Wines unless they shall keep their Lee and the which they therefore say is the Mother or Nurse they dissolve their own Tincture and drink it up together with their own sourness and therefore those of two years old become discoloured unless they are exceeding generous For truly the tincture of Wines is a certain separable Body But generous red Wines because they do more slowly wax sour or sharp they are kept for many years But those bearing a little white unless they are severed from the Lee they presently grow weak For the Lee being taken away when their sourish part doth not finde an object which it may dissolve the Wine remains in its own former State Therefore Tartar is no longer Wine or Lee but a neither thing constituted of them both But that the thing is on this wise it plainly appeareth because more Tartar is dissolved in ten ounces of Rain-water than in two hundred ounces of Wine however it be stirred by boyling To wit by reason of the sharpness of the Wine whereby the Tartar was coagulated Lastly six ounces of Salt of Tartar do dissolve seven ounces of crude Tartar because the Lixivium or lye of that Salt doth drink up the sharpness of the Tartar But that Tartar doth consist of the Lee of Wine and not of Wine onely Printers do prove who do prepare the Lee of Wine or Tartar to be a suitable Ink for them And both of these in distilling do belch forth altogether the like Odour and the like Oyl But Tartar is not dissolved in cold water because the Lee of the Wine doth so compass the Salt in the Tartar that cold water cannot the more fully dissolve it by piercing Therefore seeing the Nativity of Tartar doth not elsewhere consist than in winy juyces actually consisting of Spirit of Wine and lightly waxing soure by reason of the flight of the Spirit inward Let the Schools of Paracelsus from hence know how badly the Speculation of Tartar doth suit even with those Diseases for whose sake it was invented For truly our Stone is by no meanes solved in boyling waters because Tartar is rather to be reckoned among the number of Salts or juyces coagulated with Salt than among Stones CHAP. XXXI The rash invention of Tartar in Diseases 1. No Disease doth arise from Tartar 2. Galen is unsavoury about the matter of the Disease of the Stone 3. Galen was often deceived herein 4. He thought the Stone to be hardened in us by the Element of fire in the middle of the Vrine 5. Some ignorances of the same man 6. A neutral Judge is called for 7. The drowsiness of the Humorists unexcusable 8. An explaining of the thing granted 9. Paracelsus came nearer unto the nature of Stones 10. But he also slid in stumbling 11. Paracelsus recanteth 12. His rashness brake forth from the ambition of a Monarchy 13. Blockishness is the Companion of ambition 14. The nodding unconstancie of Paracelsus 15. He was deceived by the Metaphor of a Microcosme or little World 16. His hidden boasting 17. The like boldness of Aristotle 18. That the Metaphor of a Microcosme differs from the truth 19. Paracelsus hath not sufficiently trusted to his invention of Tartar 20. Two ignorances of the same man are demonstrated 21. The Rise of hereditary Diseases 22. The Schools have erred in both extreams 23. The Phylosophy of Paracelsus concerning Tartar is rustical or rude 24. His errour is proved 25. The incongruities of Paracelsus 26. Paracelsus was ignorant of a formal transmutation of things 27. He blockishly proceeds SEEING that Tartar hath first entred into Medicine for the consideration of the Stone I have finished a Treatise touching the Disease of the Stone and I have shewen in print that Tartar is a stranger unto the nature of the Disease of the Stone Now at length I will make manifest that plainly no Disease doth arise from Tartar but that the meditation thereof in Diseases is vain Galen had known a man to be grieved with Stones and Sands in his Reins and Bladder but he knew not to what cause he might ascribe so great a hardness in us at length I found that not any thing can be condensed or co-thickned except one onely excrement which I call muck or snivel but he names it Phlegm or a waterishness And when he discerned the Stone to grow in the remote and so in the ultimate Coasts of utterance and did think that nothing had access thither besides his own humours he boldly affirmed that the same thing doth happen in the Urine and therefore that the Stone cannot otherwise be constituted than from a watery Phlegm VVhich thing because he marked with the Element of water and watery properties therefore that it ought to grow together at the water-pipes in us The Invention smiled on him especially because a Stone being brought into the Bladder there was a continual voyding of muck together with Urine Therefore he thought that our fire because he believed it to be one of the four Elements which do concur unto the constitution of us was necessary for the hardening of the matter of the Stone and that the Phlegm should dry up even in the middle of the waters seeing he knew no other operators in nature besides heat and cold For he knew not that all things did at sometime arise out of nothing now at length that from a necessitated continuation in nature all things afterwards should flow forth from a certain Genealogy of Seeds but not that from a casual conflux of Elements and by the virtue of supervening heat and cold they are so fitly adorned with vital powers Neither considered he that those first qualities at the most and utmost could not generate or contribute any thing unto a new Being but onely occasionally to promote or fore-flow the vital dispositions of seeds in their own simplicity but not as the Elements should be combined Surely it grieveth me for his pains and that all posterity of sick folks doth hitherto pay the punishment of its own credulity because he never deservedly measured or of himself once desired the Causes of the Disease of the Stone as otherwise he ought before he erected a method of healing So his Soul is made the Chamber-maid of his own desires and he feigneth plausible reasons to himself according to the appetite of disturbance which removed it from its place to a consent of himself Therefore a strange Judge is called unto the Reasons found out by us least being credulous we worship our own fictions and love them as it were Sons and pledge for the same against equity as Parents Therefore let the fire the sieve of Reasons be that Judge But the art of the fire was not yet known in Galens time but it was hidden among privy Counsellers under an Oath in the silence of Pythagoras For Galen never law even the distillation of Roses Therefore in so great a want of knowledge his
phlegm of Elements and the constitutive humours of us For the phlegm which about the beginning of a pose doth rain down out of the Nostrils watery as they say and thin after some dayes is made thicker and yellow because it is thickned by a daily cocture of heat As if perhaps for full forty years without the corruption of it self the Scull being empty it had exspected a thickning as its chiefest good nor otherwise being more thin should it finde chinks enough for utterance These dreams do not deserve reproof by Argument unless by a serious credulity they had translated the method of healing into the destruction of mortalls I confess indeed that at the time of my young beginnings I believed that snivel if it arose not from one of the four Humours at leastwise that it was an excrement of the digestion of the brain But afterwards through a more liberal diligent search I declining from the Schools began to observe that in Summer I seldom cleanse my Nose but in Winter very often Notwithstanding in either station I through the Grace of God do enjoy a brain and its fruitfulnesses or operations alike strong at both seasons For I moreover considered that my Winter venal bloud is alike lively with that which I make or digest in Summer For the life according to the holy Scriptures is placed in the Arterial bloud and that the digestion as well of my brain as of my other parts is alike wholesom because compleat which things should not be on such a manner if the brain should daily draw out at least four ounces of an excrement and therefore sixteen ounces of venal bloud for the onely nourishment of it self and the abundance of so great a quantity of phlegm to wit besides that which hath remained in the nourished Body for a pledge of nourishment which ounces it should otherwise in Summer leave in the venal bloud Or if they do suppose that to be made by a more exact digestion of the brain or if they had rather to have the brain by reason of the injury of a Winter Air to be badly disposed and which way soever it be taken the snivel must needs be caused at least from some indisposition therefore not from the abundance of phlegm and so from the vice of the Liver as neither from a more exquisite separation of vvinter phlegm and the neglect of Summer phlegm Neither in the next place doth that indisposition happen through the vice of the brain as not of the venal bloud For that resisteth the position proposed Therefore that very thing doth spring from elsewhere For if those superfluities should remain in the venal bloud or brain in Summer-time which are otherwise expelled in Winter a place should be wanting for the entertainment of the phlegm which was collected in the whole Summer Hence I lay it down for a position that the snivel of the nostrils is more watery and plentiful and therefore there is a continual cleansing of the same in winter but not in Summer whence it followes that that thing is caused by reason of an untemperate Station which if it doth occasionally hurt the digestion of the brain that shall be either throughout the whole brain or in its lower plain whereby the cold strikes If it be offensive throughout the whole brain all the functions of the brain should be hurt together with it the imagination the discourse c. which is false For it should denote a superiority of the encompassing Air over the Spirit the Fountain and Ruler of all Functions And then the snivel ought to be made and to descend from all the intimate connexed and least particles of the brain and not onely from those which may immediately be shaken by the entring Air. Whence it is manifest that snivel is onely an excrement of the lower parts of the brain degenerated from the totality or wholeness of its nourishment before it could nourish But that it is not an excrement surviving from the last digestion which they affirm to be dispersed in manner of a dew by the least pieces into the solid parts For this also doth equally exhale in manner of a vapour no lesse from the brain than from the whole Body If therefore snivel be naturally stirred up by external occasional causes and hurtful seasons and hath its effective cause about the plain of the brain which way it toucheth the Air but not from cold for that would sound that the brain were conquered overcome and its powers as it were extinct therefore the matter of snivel which I shall teach in its place to be the matter of the Liquor Latex and also of nourishment is converted for a good and ordinary end which conversion of that matter seeing it is natural is extended as it were a Coat of Mail on the part stricken by cold And seeing the matter is vitiated through the injury of the Air surely it doth not adhere but doth distil a continual drop of water Therefore I call this effective power of snivel the Keeper which thing to have thus now supposed let it be sufficient Furthermore the the excrements of the Paunch and Bladder are indeed the superfluities of the whole Body and of the parts wherein they are made and do grow they being superfluous and unprofitable from within themselves But sweat and an unsensible eflux are superfluities now made in the last digestion and expelled after the utmost discharging of their ends But snivel is of a neither kinde For it is made by the Keeper onely provoked indeed but he is that which that he may defend and oversmear the part doth thus change the more crude juyce and also the venal bloud and that changing of the same is plainly natural ordained to a good end as long as it ariseth from a well appointed keeper Truly I do also greatly wonder at the drowsiness of the Schools for so many Ages That because they saw the snivel to distil thorow the Nostrils therefore they suddenly by an undoubted Statute decreed that the same was nothing else besides the excrement of the brain yea whatsoever is thrust forth by spitting and cough because the likeness of Colours deceived their eyes they dictated it to be nothing but a descending excrement of the brain For neither have they once by the way enquired If it be an excrement of the brain therefore it ought to be the remainder of the last digestion when indeed the Arterial bloud after that it is made a nourishable humour and distributed in manner of a dew throughout the equal masse of the brain should not indeed be consumed in the same place although now first being assimilated to the substance of the brain and being expelled should depart thorow the pores without any remainder of it self by an unsensible transpiration but altogether by a diverse or strange kinde of defilement after that it had put on the condition of a spermatick muckiness for we are nourished of those things whereof we consist the
Cough Concerning the Remedy thereof nothing hath been dreamed of which may be profitable For first of all they have given to drink the decoctions of Herbs and Colts-foots but with what an unprosperous event almost every house doth mournfully detest by its own Law At length decoctions being lesse succesfully used it hath made the Physitian to meditate of Tablets made or confected of Sugar lastly they have receâed into Syrupes and Lohochs hoping I have shewen that to be ridiculous in its place that by swallowing slowly the spittle together with the Eclegma or Lohech would slide down through the think of the voice into the VVind-pipe Nor having regard that there would be a straightning of breathing Coughs choaking and expectorating of greater misery by reason of the admitting of a forreign guest than the Cough it self becomes which stirs up such unhappy fictions of help which things I have elsewhere on purpose opened at large Alass and a wretched remedy of Fox-lungs hath also entred whereby the poor living Creature may bestow the power of his daily race which living he possessed on Sugar after death For the Schools and the dispensatories of these have been wholly ignorant that the Lungs in only a sieve of Brasse neither that it doth bring any help at all unto the in-breathings of a daily motion They are ignorant I say that it affords no comfort to him that is lame or hath the Palsey although be should daily eat Hares feet or Stags-feet At length the root of Chymists succeeded who when they saw the ground where Sulfurvive groweth to wax dry and barren but I call the vive or quick naked Sulphur that which is not exacted out of the Firestone or from elsewhere they likewise hoped that snivel the off-spring of the Keeper was to be dried up by Sulphur which thing the Schools hoped to finish by the flour of Brimstone Therefore some have sublimed that from Aloes Saffron Myrrhe and burnt Vitriol But others afterwards tryed to solve it by Lime and Alcalies which they have âamed the milk thereof surely a stinking one but that lost its credit after that the milk yea the yellow Liquor of the Sulphur being prepared with Lime Vinegar being powred on it the antient Sulphur returned again unto it self Indeed they have covered the stomach with a various Vifard that they might restore the defects of the Keeper placed in the entrance of the Wind-pipe and the apprehended blemishes of hurtful things For so the hope of the sick and the purse hath been divers wayes deluded I deny not indeed that Sulphur fitly resolved doth relieve or help the Asthma or shortness of breathing But that Asthma is not the guest of the Lungs to arise from its proper Epileptical passion to wit whither those Sulphurs have not entrance But the nest of that Asthma is about the Stomach which I shall teach afterwards which way also there is an entrance for the Sulphur the helper Furthermore the saleable floures of Sulphur are from the vein of Brasse For the veins are burnt with a slow fire that they may thence drive away the theevish Sulphur For else the Sulphur would snatch a great prey of the Brasse Therefore let every one who hath known why Arsenick hath obtained the name of the fume or smoak of Mettals well consider the strength of that Remedy Truly the Lungs doth speedily hearken to the destruction of it self and there is a very difficult restoring of its sliding life Also the Lungs doth scarce obtain help by nourishments which have through so many shops of digestions long agoe laid aside the endowments of their natural disposition before they enter unto the Lungs And it is little although they have reserved a small quantity of their antient Odour from their own composed Body in then middle life For that is unefficatious enough and unsuitable or unequal for restoring their weakness And that is especially more manifest in the Inn of the Lungs where the power of the Keeper according to his pleasure doth retort alienate and corrupt its proper nourishments that are immediately to be assimilated or made like unto it Wherefore I have expelled Minerals from this aim or scope except the greater Secrets because they are those which neither have a passage to nor have contracted a familiarity with the implanted Archeus of the Lungs I have also examined the Remedies throughout all their Ranks or Orders and those vulnerary ones have promised singularities which do appease the Archeus next which do divert from corruption and hence do restrain the wonted furies accustomed to the wound But not that I hope that those Remedies can reach unto the Lungs or vvind-pipe in their former power even as I shall elsewhere make manifest more commodiously on purpose But onely I did meditate that although the defects of Coughs were not separations of the Continual as neither that spittings were corrupt Pus yet that a vulnerary potion is that which might afford a nourishment to the whole Inn of man of such a sort that it might materially and efficiently by it self employ it self in restoring the exorbitancy as well of the Archeus as of the Keeper Therefore there was a great necessity of both Keepers to wipe of the inspired filths which else being brought inward would willingly affix themselves to the moyst sides of the Ribs and the Breast would presently thereby in all its parts be filled up with a Clay wherefore the snivel which should receive those opposite filths ought to sweat out as well in the entrance of the wind-pipe as before the Organ or Instrument of smelling Snivel I say and not water was necessary because this would presently hasten drop by drop into the bottom But the inward parts ought to be moyst least through a continual in-breathing of Air they should chap or cleave asunder Therefore a certain distributive virtue ought to accompany the continual moysture such as is that which dispenseth the Spittle I say a moderate and slow or gentle moysture ought to be borrowed out of the masse of the juyce Latex in healthy persons but when as the Keepers are ill affected they do continually weep out part of their own nourishment which they ought to assimilate to themselves To wit it being diversly altered in the form of water or also of a transparent or thick Muscilage according to the variety of passions whereunto the Keepers have hearkened But the restoring of the Keepers from weakness is very difficult and that of the vvind-pipe more dangerous or destructive than that of the Nostrils because it threatens a Consumption doth alwayes gape and is molested with a plenteous Air. At length it never satisfied me that the snivel of the nostrils although not much unlike to the snivel of Coughs in colour tast and aspect should be the same with that which is expectorated from the inward pipes of the Lungs For I could not perswade my self that the same snivel should proceed from two Bowels so diverse For if
mind if the essences of things from a former thing their causes be known only to God Therefore it is simply false that the knowing of the mind is more difficult than the naked knowing of things or therefore to be put after them Because all things are alike unknown to us because the essence of all Beings whatsoever is their precise Truth shut up to us-ward and laying open unto that which is infinite Therefore the knowledge of things is to be measured at the ballance all corporeal things are primarily strangers and forreigners to our mind and therefore more remote from the mind than the mind from it self And moreover other things are not to be known but by the mind and first in the mind for therefore the knowledge of any things whatsoever is only a certain observation from whence we frame discourses according to every ones capacity Wherefore also every such observation and discourse fetched from hence how polished soever is only from a latter thing or the effect far less illustrated than is the observation which is had from the mind For who ever of mortals knew what the water may be The which notwithstanding is the most obvious manifest visible and transparent of created things for a Country-man or Idiot knows as much of it as a Phylosopher For they do equally conceive of it by the observation of the senses that it is a Body weighty liquid moist giving place to ones finger fluid and reclosing it self upon the removing of the finger a receiver of Heat and extenuable into a vapour yet none hath known the internal thingliness of the Water or why it is liquid or moist even as indeed we know the circumstances both vital and intellectual of the mind and what things do dispose this its own prison unto various alterations and which do oft-times produce something seminally out of its concrete or composed Body So as when the appetite of a Woman with Child doth produce a Cherry on her young which flourisheth every Year Also in that we do moreover know more of the Soul than of the Water it is that which is known by the Revelation of Faith To wit That the mind is a Spiritual substance also subsisting by it self without a Body Immortal Living made after the Image or likeness of God immediately by God himself giving Sense as also motion to the Organs and the which being seperated from the Body doth perceive without Organs at its beck or pleasure being able also to move out of it self and the Body being bridled or restrained is able to produce a Being out of it self as hath been already shewn concerning a Woman with Child it understanding also willing and remembring c. The Observations of which Properties and Functions are far more strong than is the knowledge of the Water otherwise all things and every of things by an intrinsecal understanding are equally unknown and unpassable to us But that which hath Seduced Predecessours by thinking that the knowing of the Water was easier than that of the mind hath proceeded from an Opinion That a visible thing is of necessity more known than an invisible thing But they have not distinguished the Knowledge of Observation from the Internal Knowledge of essence or thingliness according to which all things are equally unknown unto us They have not known I say that the knowledge of Observation doth not introduce an understanding into the essential thingliness of a thing but erecteth only a thinkative knowledge For otherwise the understanding should perceive causes that are before in essence Then also they have been deceived by the simplicity of the Water which simpleness they have confounded with the unity of knowledge to us unknown In the mean time seeing the observations of the mind are many and the more plentiful the property of every one whereof denyeth a knowing from a former thing therefore they have thought that they did undergo more impossibilities in the knowing of the mind than in that of a simple Body And so as well the number only in the mind as a visual frequency of Bodies hath brought forth in them that difficulty when as notwithstanding after another manner in the Beingness of a Being that which is visible is as well unknown intellectually as that which is invisible For I intended to deliver an intellective Doctrine of the mind that man might originally as much as he can know or acknowledge his own self and that afterwards he might learn from the Image of the Divinity to contemplate of things more inferiour than himself But when I endeavoured to explain that by the mental acts of Prayer I had not freedom in that thing because they were judged to exceed the Square of my own contempt or meanness I willingly omitted that Treatise Let it therefore be sufficient for me to have plainly demonstrated to others more abounding then my self that the Christian Phylosophy of nature doth not admit of nor will mortal strange far remote things and the causes whereof are hidden from a former cause and not to know in the mean time who I the contemplater may be what the understanding may be how an intellectual act may be formed and subsist Especially because any thing is not conceived as it is in it self but aâter the manner of the receiver that is of the conceiver Therefore before all the receiving understanding which affecteth the understanding of things who or what and after what manner it is disposed in the act of comprehension seemed to me to be weighed Next what the sheath of the understanding may be and the capacity vigour and manner thereof After what manner in the next place a power indeed undistinct from it self may be drawn and descend into the Functions and Organs tied and Subjected unto it Lastly before I can know whether a thing it self understood be true good or whether in me or for me it is not to be changed in its Beingness by conceiving or alienated from its own essence from whence the Truth of Entity or beingness it self had assumed a strange mask I altogether judged that those things ought to be cleered up by intellectuall acts tho which I determined could not be more readily or successfully begged by any other thing than by practise that is from the mental Prayer of Silence But that thing others shall discern or judge of and weigh more justly or equally than I And therefore I would not willingly descend into this labarinth CHAP. XLV The Distinction of the mind from the Sensitive Soul 1. The Treatise of the Entrance of death into Humane nature is commended as necessary for obtaining a knowledge of the mind 2. The Reader is also sent back unto the Treatise Touching the Birth of Forms 3. The Immortality of the Mind is proved from the Gospel 4. It prepares a Weapon against the Atheism at this day 5. Leonard Lessius describing or Coppying out hath re-delivered only out of Augustine concerning the Immortality of the Soul FIrst
now what he would in times past it is not our part to aske of God a reason of his own will therefore it is a foolish Argument God doth not now do what he did in times past therefore he cannot do it The Hebrew people was a small people out of whom Christ ought to arise and that people were on every side beset with Enemies and the which unless they had been supported with the stretched-out Arme of God and as it were by a continual miracle they being presently brought to nothing had yielded as a prey to the Conqueror from whence notwithstanding it was decreed that the Messias should arise But the condition and Law of Christians is far otherwise For the Israelitish people in the hardness of their hearts did measure the grace or favour of God by the abounding of Wealth Of-spring Fruitfulness of Fruits and their peaceable Possession But we have known that offences should be necessary in the Church Tribulations also how great soever yet not worthy to be reckoned with the Expectations of the Age to come And likewise it hath so pleased God that for unjustice Kingdoms are translated from Nation to Nation But that I may shew that there is the same God of the Christians which there was in times past to the Hebrews I must not indeed run back unto the written Chronicles with which Atheists the Bibles themselves are of no credit the Argument of Atheists is to be overthrown Seeing their understanding admits not of that which is not introduced outwardly by the Senses Their whole Faith is from a knowledge but that knowledge is founded in a present Sensibility a fore-past Observation renouncing of Histories and succession of Ages for otherwise there ought to be no less Authority of sacred than of profane Writers Yea all the knowledge of Atheists descends to the Eyes to Sight Numbers Lines Figures Tones or Sounds Weights Motions Smells Touchings Handlings and Tasts that is it wholly depends on a brutal Beginning and they are unapt to understand those things which do exceed sense For that is the cause why they exclude themselves from the intelligible world and do kick against the corner Stone But at leastwise they confess that they do see and know those things which they are ignorant of which thing happens in the Speculations of the Planets But I wish that Atheists may measure the compass of the World I say the real distance of Saturn from us for they shall confess for that very cause even against their wills the distance of so many thousand Miles which their understanding it self will contradict by seen dimensions or they shall of necessity incline themselves to confess that a three-fold circuite of Saturne in respect of his own Diameter could not have arisen from himself or of his own accord but rather that there is some Author of these of infinite power wisdome greatness and so also of Duration c. But if the Atheist doth think that the Orbs of so incomprehensible greatness and so regular a constancy of successive changes have been thus of their own accord from everlasting at least wise the perpetuity of that infinite Eternity ought to follow a certain Law Order and ordained Government which did require a certain presiding or overseeing or ruling Being everlasting in continuance great and powerful Most miserable therefore are they who by an utter denial of all things do exclude Faith and the rewards of Faith For let us consider the Circle of the Earth to be cloathed with waters or that place without Earth and water to wit that all things do of their very own forceable Inclination fall towards their Center So that if two men were there to wit from East and West these should touch each other with their Feet and should look upwards with their head even as we and the Antipodes at this day This I say the Atheist doth believe although sense hath not suggested it unto him For weighty bodies do teach indeed their own ready Inclination of falling downwards but that the Heaven is on every side aboue in respect of one Center and that such is the property of this Center that there is not another like unto it neither yet hath the Atheist seen that property but nevertheless he believes it yea whatsoever he may at any time frame he alwayes finds the contrary and without that property of a Center he believes I say that same one only natural property in the universal Center but he never beholds or looks into the working cause thereof or that which is like it in the least and he had rather through unbelief exclude it from himself But at least if there be not a God nor he every where present and giving all things to all it should be all one if all things were confounded should fall upwards or downwards whether weighty Bodies did rush downwards or upwards whether Plants and Beasts did perish or not Therefore the constancy of order perseverance of the Species or particular kinds do of necessity require some primitive Fountainous Being from whence they began are and do propagate by a continual thred and the which doth govern all things at his own pleasure or by his own beck and gives a constancy and Succession of Continuation least all things should go to ruine and be confusedly Co-mingled Indeed he beares a universal care and keeps things in their essence or being In the next place let the Atheist consider the flowing and ebbing of the Water To wit that no water doth ascend of its own accord yet that the water of the Sea doth alwayes ascend as well in the flowing as ebbing of the Sea He believes this because he sees it but the cause thereof he believes not because he seeth it not neither hath the knowledge thereof entred by sense because it is that which contradicteth his senses But he at least ought to believe that those things do happen by a cause although he hath not known the same by which notwithstanding every thing hath drawn such a property For although all particular kinds should have this kind of power of seeds and gifts from everlasting yet nevertheless there is not a certain universal property in the Universe which may have respect unto all particular things that they may be ordained and which may know all particular things newly risen and to arise unless it be out of and besides the nature of all particular things Otherwise there should be innumerable Deities as there were in times past and moreover there should be continual Divisions and Dissolutions of the species or particular kinds For the Atheist denies to believe what things he knows not by sense he sees indeed the water to be moist but he knows not what that is which is moist in the water or why it is moist Therefore he believes that which he doth not know and that which he doth not pierce that is as the Beast doth for neither shall Humane knowledge ever raise him up
take notice by the way That the Sweat of dying Persons is not so much the Liquor Latex in its own nature as a resolved Alimentary or nourishable Dew over which Death commandeth which is manifest for preseutly the Habit of the body falleth even as also in swooning And that Sweat hath wonderful Virtues of mortifying the Hemeroides or Piles and possesseth Excrescences Furthermore that the Sweat is not carried by Heat in the shew of a Vapour is manifest For seeing a Vapour doth occupy a hundred-fold more Room than Water the body should swell in Sweating a hundred-fold more than otherwise its propert extent is For there is not an empty place under the Skin which may receive a Vapour also a Kettle of Hot water hath no Vapour within it and that which it sends sorth it exhales only from the supersicies Therefore a Vapour doth not roue under the Skin but is driven forth only in the shape of a Liquor Sweat therefore is the Liquor Latex materially shaving off or washing away the filth from the Kitchins of the parts through which it is brought and therefore for the most part strongly smelling and that in Diseased persons more then in Healthy ones And so also in a Crââs or Judicial sign it oft-times finisheth Diseases as it brings forth with it filths according to its ordinary Scope The Schools have admired the dissections of dead ãâ¦ã they have not yet looked into the Anatomy of Sweat by Digestious Smoakinesses Vapours Elections Admixtures Resolvings or Expulsions The scope of the Latex was more intimate For seeing the Eye had need of liquor that its Eyelid might be moved without hurt and the Tongue wanted Spittle to temper the chewed Meats with moisture but it should be absurd for the whole Food to be moistened by the Mass of venal bloud therefore the Latex is brought by the Veins whence the Spittle Tears c. should be made for while in Squinancies and the disgraceful Salivation of Mercury more Spittle than is meet flows forth the Paunch is made dryer then it self Therefore the Latex wanders unhurtfully in the Mass of the venal bloud is brought unto fit places readily hearkening unto the distributive faculty The which indeed if at any time it shall snatch the Salt of the Brain with it as in the pose yet the Latex is not hurtful in its own nature neither must that be blamed for a fault which is unseasonably joyned to it being guiltless through accident Likewise although it being observant doth abound in diseases blows up Oedematous legs that happens by chance for nature by a general endeavour brings forth a hateful Guest to her self and stuffs it with Excrements which she desireth to drive away I find a Sheet in a most cold night to be in the morning bent and congealed by the night blast the fourfold quantity of whose water at least hath also exhaled And the blast of Air in Summer dayes is no less but much more stinking Therefore some ounees of an unsavory liquor are puffed out from the Lungs alone But that water is not the Excrement of the Lungs as neither the matter of venal Bloud resolved wherefore it is setched out of the Latex whether it be sent thither by the distributive power of the Archeus or at length the Lungs do allure the same unto themselves at least wise it is continually supplyed and the ministry which elsewhere the Glandules or Kernels do perform this same service the substance of the Lungs performeth And so it is as it were the scope of the Humour Latex to restrain by its moisture that the Lungs do not chap through the dryness of attracted Air. It is also an abuse to Teach that the Latex is in the beginning of a Pose crude or raw and uncocted and that in the number of dayes it is thickned by heat about the end of the digested Ripeness For it being once expelled it expecteth not to be cocted as neither the coagulation of it self that it may grow together neither could the Humour Latex from the beginning of a Pose ever have expected a thickning of it self in an idle or void Scul Therefore the Ignorance of the Humor Latex hath stirred up many Dreams in healing in Catarrhs and Oedemaes to wit the Legs being over night swollen reteining a small pit of the pressing Finger and vanishing away in the morning is thought to be Phlegm turned into venal bloud by a nights digestion An ignorance therefore of the serviceable Humour Latex hath brought forth the fables of a supposed Rhenmatism But if they had once come to a reckoning with themselves they had seen to wit that over-night both Legs were loaded perhaps with four Pound weight of Oedema or Phlegmatish Tumour But it had been as they say a more crude Phlegmatick bloud seeing the Legs are not known by the Schools to be sinks of Phlegm neither is there therefore a reason why Phlegm should rather fall down into the Legs than any other of the threor emaining Humours or than that Phlegm should fall down into the Belly Thighs Loyns c. Truly a just dispensing of Proportion should daily require perhaps 40 Pounds for the expence of unripe bloud to be consumed throughout the whole Body Basins and Champer-pots are in one only night filled with Spittles and the Bed-cloaths together with the Shirts do drop with moisture the which unless they are fetched from the Latex and not from the Mass of lively venal bloud whatsoever things are believed concerning Meats digestions and making of bloud do fall to the ground together For Arithmetick it self and the Ballance of weight do delude paultry Physicians in their Fictions of Phlegm but what ingenious man will ever believe that Spittle Tears Sweats and besides plenty of Urine is to be fetched from the very inheritance of the bloud without a present dammage of life especially because the same doth remain even for long Terms of time For let us feign a small Supper the Stomach and Pylorus to have well performed their office but a plentiful Salivation in a fierce squinancy and exquisite Inflam tions of the Almonds of the Throat Surely that more thick and continual Muckiness doth not flow down out of the Brain the passage of the Jaws being now obstructed and much less doth it aseend out of the Stomach which is empty and under the stopping up of the Jaws therefore let Spittle be the ordinary workmanship of the Tongue and Jaws the matter whereof is fetched from the Latex the which according to the variety of its Ferment doth change with divers Masks to wit Spittles are watery Snivelly Salt Sharp Bitter and tough like a thred A daily plenty of the Liquor Latex was therefore necessary in the Veins and a ready obedience thereof unto the call of the Archeus For although the Latex be unapt for nourishing yet is it fit or convenient for its uses For meats might be reduced into juyce without drinks which thing Mice and Grass-hoppers teach unless
Aposteme made in a Pleurisie the bloud of the same cannot be evacuated by a Vein being cut however the name of Revulsion and Derivation be boasted of for fear of the disease and delusion of the Sick And likewise neither doth the cutting of a Vein hinder that any thing doth any more for the future wax sharp seeing blood-letting hath the power only of a Privation neither can the venal bloud which is brought forth hinder that that which being within hath drawn a sharpness should not lay the same aside But a meet Remedy for the Pleurisie is bound to cause an a versness from the conception of a sharpning in the Archeus If therefore the sharpness of the venal bloud be a token of the same putrifying it is certain that a Vein doth receive into it self neither putrified nor putrifying bloud neither that it suffers it to putrifie if as yet after death is defend the same from co-agulating Therefore there is some exorbitant or pestilent Impression in the bloud if it wax sharp never so slenderly But if the Archeus be infected by an Endemical matter breathed into the Breast or a sharp Poyson otherwise bred within and he shall affect the bloud of the Veins or other bloud designed for nourishment any part whatsoever being sore afraid of corrupting doth presently repulse the same bloud from it This I say is the efficient and true Spur of the Pleurisie and that thing Hippocrates the first of Physicians seemeth to have perceived while he writeth Hot Cold Moist or Dry are not diseases but that which is Sharp Bitter Soure and Harsh But that there is sharpness in a Pleurisie is manifest from this because in the Pleurisie the Urine and venal bloud being drawn forth by a cut Vein do wax clotty even in going forth or before the co-thickning of the bloud which clottiness or cheefiness is the effect of sharpness But the Latex which waxeth sharp lighting into the flesh between the Ribs causeth a Pleuritical pain but not a true and constant affect And therefore that which they name a Flatulent or windy one although windy Blasts do never reach thither unless by taking of a transchanging Poyson even as concerning windinesses doth by a slender Remedy presently produce it self discussable to wit by unperceivable Transpirations Therefore the sharpness presently brings forth pain but I have called in the Book of the Disease of the Stone in the Chapter of Sensation the proper companion and cause of pain a Convulsion In which Convulsion the Pulse which before lay hid is manifested the Artery waxeth hard and pain acompanies it But because a Convulsion is for the most part extended and slackened by intervals which the pain of women in Travail doth testifie hence it comes to pass that as oft as the Pleura is intenton its cramp by a proper Blas of motion so often something of the Fibers is rent asunder from the Ribs and while it doth but never so little slacken it self the neighbouring bloud runs to it into the place of the wrinckles made by contracting of the Fracture And this by repeated turns is the cause of a great Aposteme according to the frequency and sharpness of the Contractures But the venal bloud being hunted out or otherwise exceeding a just Dose by reason of the mark of a sharp or soure Ferment conceived becomes hostile and is presently curdled But if indeed the sharpness be dispersed by the infected Archeus into the Arterial Vein or Venal Artery which are the vessels of the Lungs a necessitated Inflamation or Impostume of the Lungs doth happen Let the Schools therefore see and discern whether blood-letting can cure the containing cause and root or whether indeed their whole endeavour doth only extend it self that with a procured loss of strength they may prevent an increase of the Pleurisie when much For thus the manner of making diseases ought to be explained by their motive and vital causes if it be needful to have young beginners rightly instructed and for Physitians to be so consulted with that afterwards every one may rightly perform his office and that the sick neighbour may thereby crop his desired Fruit. For the Thorn being pulled out the rest doth easily cease unless perhaps long delay hath made the Apostem it self Thorny For an Apostem or Ulcer being once formed although they have neither privily gotten root in the body nor are nourished from elswhere yet they do afterwards stand by themselves and subsist without any other Patronage of them We must therefore employ our selves about the plucking out of the Thorn and there is a stubbornness of a consumptive Ulcer because the Ulcer hath not now a Thorn but hath become Thorny The Pleurisie therefore is bred in us of its own accord when a guest of the first digestion being a stranger flees into anothers Harvest or otherwise a Poysonous Endemick being breathed in and then a Pleurisie is frequent among the people For in much heat a sudden and much abundant drinking of cold water or drink doth contract the Pleura no otherwise than as any other sharp thing which rusheth on it Also the kitchin of the Pleura is not in its most thin and undividable little membrane but in the flesh between the Ribs which co-toucheth with it For it s too much slenderness doth not suffer a kitchin to be hid within it self Therefore the blood of the Pleura it self is most swiftly mortified by a violent external thing rushing on it whether it shall be sharp or a sudden cold Because in that outward kitchin nourishment is not digested and prepared for it The blood therefore being vitiated wnile it is in making for the nourishment of the Pleura it straightway waxeth sharp and becomes a true Pleurisie But they do feel the Pleurisie not indeed to come but to have come and to be present while it is generated by an external thing rushing on it For natural generations are made as it were in an instant And therefore the degeneration of the bloud in the aforesaid and outward kitchin of the Pleura is as it were in an instant But the Pleurisie happening from sharp venal bloud defiled from els-where hath for the most part other fore-shewing diseases But it is also proper to the Pleurisie that it presently repenteth nature of her offence And so from the horror of the admitted error she willingly correcteth the offence of her own digestion And therefore for cure there is only required that the Thorn product of the confused Digestion be taken away in the blood it self encompassing yea and in the Apostem it self But the Pleurisie which is restored by blood-letting doth oft-times after a years space return and doth more often leave a Consumption behind it Because the business of the remaining Thorn is left to be overcome by the shoulders of nature alone without a help restoring the Character which there stayeth behind The Antients indeed have perceived that where Pain and Heat are thither venal blood
that of the stomack of a living Creature Certainly thou shalt draw out nothing but an un-savoury and no glewy water and much less a salt sharp and tart Rheume 16. That although snivel do slide into the jawes and doth diversly and oft-times badly affect these according to the divers indispositions of the snivel notwithstanding neither that filth nor the dropping down thereof can bear the reason of a Rheume no more than the urine sliding out of the kidney into the bladder is to be called a Rheume Wherefore if there be an un-savoury salt sharp or soure fluide or gross snivel sliding down into the parts whereby it is deputed naturally to be purged as it were through an emunctory it is not to be called a Catarrhe however badly also it may affect the parts even as also the urine if it shall afflict the bladder 17. By how much less ought the Flux of any feigned humour or dreamed excrement bred and derived after a manner through means places and journeys naturally impossible to be reckoned a Catarrhe 18. If the brain in living Creatures be not actually cold the reason of condensing of a vapour ceaseth but if it be less hot than the other parts doth therefore a vapour seek the more cold part by sense or feeling and choice because it desires rather to be coagulated than to remain as it is 19. Or are vapours driven by all the more hot parts on every side unto the brain as the more cold part But thus there should be altogether a continued unexcusable tempest in healthy folk But yet all these things being disregarded the which notwithstanding cannot have themselves naturally by way of necessity Rheumes should nevertheless flow down But not in the first place toward the outward parts between the scull and the skin For truly the Schools themselves do teach that vapours or the foregoing matter of a Rheume doth climb from the stomack unto the bottom of the brain and there doth find a certain plain an imaginary one nor as yet found by Anatomy in the hollow whereof it doth presently grow together and presently after that concretion it fall's down by drops Far be it surely from thence that an enemy which is a stranger a meer excrement a forreigner to the brain and the cause of so great infirmities passing into water in the lowermost plainness of the brain should from thence pierce thorow the very body of the brain or that in the form of water or at length again in shew of a vapour it shall sport in the aforesaid plain For not in the likeness of a vapour as though a vapour reacheth from the stomack unto the bottom of the brain and doth grow together in the place of cold as they say surely by the same opportunity of cold it shall remain water neither shall it be again made a vapour If therefore that vapour be now there made water by reason of the cold of the place it is not to be believed that this hostile water is drawn inwards and much less to have become so subtile that against the will of the receivers it should pounce the brain coats of the brain seames scull and the Periostion or skin covering the bones that it may be stayed and run down under the skin For besides unavoidable and very many absurdities that water shall be as it were rain water and unfit for slimy Catarrhs waxing very hard with muckiness Yea the Rheumes which are hence to arise should at the first sense of heat sooner vanish away by every sweat unless the Galenists do teach that the water which is made of the vapour of a luke-warm stomack is afterwards fixed Also that it hath become salt and sharp only by the touching of the plain which thing the knife hath not yet observed And then the skin of the scull being far more pory than the scull should sooner root out that water by transpiration or sweat than the evils from thence believed can be made Moreover the skin which is stretched over the scull is more toughly adhering hereto neither doth the steepness only of the place suffice for the flowing down of a Catarrhe and for the renting of the skin from the bone Yea and more is this water bred from the vapour of the stomack should of necessity have a driver within which should drive it thorow the brain coats bone and Periostion But that should not be any heat for then it should cease to be water and should again be made a vapour which is feigned to be condensed into water by the coldness of the brain In the next place Rheumes are said to be more accustomed to old folks weak people and to the colder stations therefore that driver or forcer shall be cold which after another manner is wont to bind the parts together and shall now the order of things being overturned drive the water thorow the brain and that indeed in the form of water And that driving or pulse in the water sprung from the meer vapours of the stomack shall be even in the brain which should open it self together with the coats and scull unto the water coming to it Again seeing all such water co-thickned by a vapour is said to be hanging on the bottom of the brain neither that it can there be detained beyond the bigness of a drop but that it of necessity will presently and droppingly fall head-long down or the brain being forgetful of its duty shall set up this excrementitious water by drops And then besides a driver the water should have need of a leader which should stretch out the skin and pluck it from the ribs that it may provide a place to wit in the Pleurisie for it self hastening downwards And as well the leader as the driver in the water should be more powerful than our Blas Lastly the mask of credulity being at once discovered at whatsoever price I shall prostitute the dreams of the Schools concerning Catarrhs none shall buy their false wares Neither could I hitherto sufficiently admire that the world hath been circumvented by Catarrhs that mortals have placed so great credulity by reason of one only fault to wit ignorance in a thing I say so blockish foolish and wholly impossible Because the Schools not finding a cause whereto they might ascribe the Catalogue of Diseases have commanded these dreams of Catarrhs to be believed But at least wise the sweat is salt wherefore the humour latex should rather afford the matter of a Rheume than that feigned vapour to be led through so many windings and scarce possibly consisting through a thousand absurdities Then also the accustomed saltness of the latex hath more immediate causes of pains than an unsavory water derived upwards in feigned vapours In the next place if water doth pass thorow the brain coats thereof scull and about the bony membrane shall it now therefore being wearied not be able to pierce even the skin also or shall it forget the wayes why shall the sudoriferous
past dissolved Gold yet I less profited by its potable juyce than by the decoction of any Simple But afterwards I could dissolve Gold and mock it with the face of Butter Rosin and Vitriol But I no where found the virtues attributed to Gold because it was also so reluctant to our ferments I perceived therefore that Gold without its own proper corrosive is dead dead I say unless it be radically pierced by its own corrosive Not indeed that it doth then resemble the Nature of the Sun and doth add any thing unto its vital faculties but onely that its whole body doth by purging unsensibly cleanse in a unisone tone or harmony Yea also the pretious Pearles called Vnions are by that corrosive changed into a Spermatical Milk which is sociable with the first constitutives of us and in this respect are they a Remedy of the Consumption Palsie c. At length I perceived That the liquor Alkahest did cleanse Nature by the virtue of its own Fire For as the Fire destroyeth all Insects so the Alkahest consumeth Diseases In the next place I perceived That Mercurius vitae reckoned by Paracelsus among his four secrets besides the fiery force of the fire of Hell doth clarifie the Organs no otherwise than as Stibium doth purify Gold from things admixt with it which same thing I judge concerning the tincture of Lile a Sunonymal Nature in the mean time desireth as it were by a new spring to rise again under these Medicines Yet we are without hope of restoring into our former state seeing an infusion of new faculties arguing immortality is wanting unto us For it is appointed for every living Creature once to die Because there is nothing in Nature which can have an equal prevalency with the Temple of the Image of God Therefore I perceived That all renewing Medicines do operate by refining and in this respect by exhilarating otherwise there is not a true renewing of Youth And then I perceived That Secrets which do cure by resolving and expelling do nothing but awaken the faculties placed in us the which impediments being removed do as it were bud again under a new spring Lastly I perceived That there were Simples wherein a proper issuing of the forme doth not operate but the command of a strang form and character doth happen unto them that they might cause a contagion between Symbolizing or co-resembling things and from thence are Sorceries and Inchantments For whatsoever things are prepared by a voluntary Blas are for the most part propagated to the functions of local motion they are directed I say unto the Sinewes being most apt for the stirring up of pains and sicknesses or griefs For neither have they poysons or ferments unless an evil spirit do add them or couple them by functions vanquished by himself for then they do excell other poysons being a-kin to the poyson of the Plague Yea I perceived That even all poysons besides corrosives did act by reason of a specifical property emulous of or imitating the imaginative faculty placed in the seed formally inbred and having the powers of a ferment equivocally acting I perceived moreover That every thing doth variously diffuse its activities according to the manner of the thing receiving and of application For bread operates otherwise within in us and otherwise in all bruit beasts and otherwise in the Stomack Liver and in the other Kitchins by reason of the diversities of ferments So I perceived that flesh applied to the outward parts doth presently putrifie which within is resolved by the ferments and at length assimulated unto our parts To wit I have perceived Polenta or Barley floure dried by the fire and fried after soaking in water to besmear and soften the outward parts which within nourisheth heateth bindes the belly and moves flatus's For every Simple being outwardly applyed doth under the sixth digestion display its virtues with us the which within is almost in its first progresses for the most part subdued A live man being long detained in the water would putrifie but dead flesh being alwayes well rinced in a new stream doth put on the nature of Balsame So the Stomack although it be perpetually moist yet it doth not thereby putrifie For the operations of Nature Galen was ignorant of because he smelt not out the properties of ferments But Paracelsus hath caused the incongruities of an Idiotisme in affirming that Oyles and Emplaisters are digested and transchanged into new flesh in a Wound even as meats are in the Stomack But he is ignorant that there is no passage into the sixth digestion but gradually by precedent digestions For this cause there is no venal blood made in the Stomack as neither is any nourishment made by a Clyster detained in the Colon or confines of the Ileon however the Schooles may whisper to the contrary For Brothes do presently putrifie in the Bowels neither is there a making of Cream but far be it that blood should be made if it shall not be first a Cream neither is the Liver the shop of the Cream much less is there an incarnating in the Stomack But least of all that of an Emplaister flesh or blood should be made For the skin being opened putrifaction is presently introduced into it no otherwise than as the shell or peel of an Egg being bruised there is corruption For hence is there a weeping Liquor Sanies Pus Sandy-water Latex Wormes c. for preventing whereof the whole care of the Chyrurgion diligently endeavoureth and the which being separated the flesh doth voluntarily grow but not by applyed Remedies I have also perceived that Salts which are domestical unto us are fitter for seasoning of meats also for dissolving and exterging or clean wiping away of filths than that they are promoted into nourishment But that Oyles are scarce proper for sanguification but least of all those which ascend by the fire But that distilled waters have small conditions of medicine Because Nature doth every where rejoyce in nourishment caused of Bodies existing in their composition And therefore artificial Salts do pierce deeper than Oyles the which do resist sanguification neither are they thoroughly mixed And therefore the Salts of Spices or sweet smelling things which are made of their Oyles do supply the room of their first Being Magisteries are to be had in great esteem because the substance of these is entire digestible and obedient to the ferments And therefore Nature refuseth meats which are hidden in their Essences by reason of their difficulties of fermentation For all things that are too much graduated do draw after them the middle Life of the Blood but they are not easily subdued by the ferments In brief Those things which do the more stubbornly keep their middle Life are not easily vanquished by our Archeus neither are they onely stubborn in digesting but they are obstinate in perseverance and do act on us so far as they are not subdued But Verdigrease Crocusaeris Cerusse Precipiate Sublimate c.
so a small vein being burst had caused a difficult breathing and did also dissemble a Dropsie But when as the rupture of the vein being more rent had poured forth its Blood it choaked the man A certain Dropsical Man and but one onely being seen by me shewed a black and stinking Bubble in the hollow of his Liver Barth-Cabrollius an Anatomist of Mount-Pellier Saith that he cured very many Dropsical Persons by Incision made in the very Navill it self standing out and that in both sexes But surely if the errour had been in the Liver it could not have issued forth with the water through the Navil or that the Liver being mortally defiled should admit of a restoring Which thing the Schooles will not admit of Wherefore I remember that I have restored above two thousand Dropsical Persons also whose Urine did now wax-blackish with Bloodinesse and who had scarce made a spoon-ful of water in one night whose Liver if it had had but even a mean and not a mortal fault I consess I had not Cured them I have seen also that they whose Liver hath been notably wounded have escaped who although they thenceforth fore-perceived the Storms of the Aire yet not the Dropsie I have seen moreover those whose last day a slow Fever had closed in whose Liver small Stones had grown yet they had not shewn a Dropsie It is a familiar thing for the Liver of Oxen to abound with small Stones although they are continually fed with grasse Whence at leastwise I have learned that Grass-roots do never remove the obstructions of the Liver The Schooles will say to these things the Dropsie indeed is not made from a visible corrupting or obstruction of the Liver as neither from the Salt of the feigned Jamenous-alume as otherwise hath seemed to Paracelsus but from a meer cold and moist Distemperature thereof for so a large Flux of Blood because it brings the aforesaid distemperature it causeth the Dropsie But this is wholly prattle old Wives Fables and vain sounds For first of all I have sufficiently demonstrated the nullities of mixtures and temperatures not any more to be repeated 2. I have seen many all the venal Blood of whom a Consumption had exhausted so as that scarce two ounces had remained when their Heart Lungs and Liver were plucked out but their Liver was of a yellowish Colour because it was without Blood yet there was no cold and moist distemper in these Livers as neither a Dropsie the Supposed son of its feigned Mother 3. If much Flux of Blood should generate cold and moist distemperatures surely the Schooles do not affirm that thing to be done but by the reason of a withdrawing of the vital Spirit which alone is the cause of our heat But the defect whereof seeing it includes a privation it cannot induce a positive Being such as a cold and moist distemperature and Dropsie should be 4. And likewise seeing they will have contraries to be contained under the same general kinde our vital heat which they will have to answer to the Element of the Stars cannot have an Elementary cold contrary unto it 5. A notable Flux of Blood doth of necessity cause cold And therefore if a cold distemperature arisen from a Flux of Blood should be of necessity the mother of the Dropsie at every notable flux of blood the Dropsie should of necessity be present But the consequent is false Therefore also the Antecedent 6. And moreover seeing cold from a flux of blood becomes universal there is no reason why the Abdomen should be rather loaden with water than the Breast whither to wit the Aire being continually breathed in doth increase the cold 7. If the Dropsie be the son of that distemperature in the Liver Whence therefore is there an uncessant thirst 8. If the Expulsion of water into the Abdomen be an action of a distempered Liver Why doth not the Liver use the same its own expulsive action while the Veines do swell with Urine they being intercepted by a destructive Stone 9. Likewise the Blood of Dropsical Persons even as also the Urine should be exceeding watery if the Dropsie should be from a cold distemperature of the Liver But the Urine should not be so reddish and Bloody 10. In the next place between a Dropsie and cold distemperature arisen from a flux of blood a positive cause being a third from a cold should of necessity interpose Which the Schooles do hitherto name because of a non-being there is no search made 11. Neither also do such distemperatures produce thirst together with a Salt Water in the Abdomen seeing they do not thirst who do plentifully detain a salt Urine throughout all their veins in the Stone which stops up the Reines on both sides 12. If the Dropsie be from a cold distemper Then a Dropsie should never be expected after a Fever or wringing of the Bowels if there be not a branded confusion of causes And in vain do they flee unto a cold distemperature for a Dropsie the which should equally proceed even from opposite causes 13. Every old and decrepite Person should now nourish the necessity of a Dropsie 14. A cold distemper seeing in its root it is like to Death extinguishment old Age and privation every Dropsie should contain a necessary despaire of health even as such a distemperature denies a restauration 15. If the Liver be the Liver and not the Lungs by reason of its Elementary co-tempering as the Schooles say and so from one only Seed all the Elements do proceed and wander hither and thither confused that they may be the constitutives of appointed Organs therefore the Liver receding from its natural temperature shall cease to be the Liver and shall be the Kidney Lungs or Milt 16. At leastwise a Member struck with a Palsey should not be wasted but should be after some sort swollen with a Dropsie 17. At length if the Venal Blood be resolved into four or again into three Humours from whence it is either naturally composed or they are in it being applyed unto or co-mixed in the subject of the Blood The Blood shall never be able to be changed into a Dropsical water Seeing this is not any Humour of the constitutives of the Blood Yet I have seen a country-man out of whom all the water was taken by a Borer in twelve hours space for he being become my Opposite Scoffed at me But the morrow morning being swollen with the former Lumpe of his Belly he died For the Dropsie increased not by degrees even as it had increased from its beginning but it presently hastened and proceeded unto an extream extension For I observed that his Flesh and Blood being melted into Water had made their retreat to the neather part of his Belly For in that one only day he had descended into extream Leannesse Therefore his Flesh and Blood shall now wander into an Hydropical or fifth Humour through the cold distemperature of his Liver I could perhaps pardon
that the Liver being cooled doth afterwards generate the more cold Blood for all Blood being deprived of vital spirit naturally waxeth cold because it is a dead carcase But that a more cold Liver doth melt fleshes into a Dropsical water that can be founded upon no reason 18. The Schooles cannot deny but that a Dropsie is sometimes solved by the Kidneys But there is no reason why the Reines do stubornly close themselves even untill Death because the Liver was more cold than was meet Let these arguments onely as yet suffice the Humourists which are distempered with cold that the Liver may be from a mortal offence Now I will over-add somethings concerning the occasional Cause I will therefore resume the fact of our Treasurer who shewed nothing memorable in this dissection beside Blood out-hunted and hardned in his Kidney to be the occasional Cause of his Dropsie and Death yet while the Stone plentifully stopping the Kidney doth not produce a Dropsie yea although the whole Kidney shall wax brawnie or hard with little Stones and shall reserve nothing of its substance besides skin Therefore the obstruction of the Kidney as such is not the occasional cause of Dropsie But the out-chased venal Blood For so the Woman of Sixty years old having dashed her self against a corner of the Table contracted a Dropsie So those that are wounded in their Abdomen and badly Cured do become Hydropical So out-chased venal Blood lighting and laying on the Menynx or Coate of the Brain doth presently render the countenance swollen with a Dropsie So at length great gripings of the Guts do pour forth Blood out of the Veins into the space bordering on the hollow bending Bowel So those that have the Bloodie-flux And so Drinkers do enter into a Dropsie as something of blood is co-heaped in the hollow Bought of the Bowel But this thing I learned in a Fracture of the Scull and in a Dropsie of the Lungs For there the Blood making oftimes a stop blows up the whole Head and Face as it were with a Dropsie But here I have observed the Blood to have consisted or remained about the conduit of the arterial Vein for neither doth the venal blood degenerate in the form of corrupt Pus unless it be cocted in the hollowness of the Flesh but without the Flesh in a free place the Blood presently waxeth clottie and straight way after it being made more dry is hardened and presently conceives a Poysonous ferment Whence the Archeus stirs up a Dropsie Indeed our Treasurer hath taught me that the blood being hunted out and become clotty causeth a Dropsie of the Belly and besides that the Kidney is an Adequate or suitabl Aertificer Causer Executer and Judge or Arbitratour of a true Dropsie That thing hath confirmed it to me because at the time of a Dropsie the Kidney scarce makes Urine and on the other hand because the Kidney being excited to restore the Urine himself doth empty the whole Dropsie out of the Belly Wherefore also that the water is brought back into the Abdomen by the arbitration of the Kidney Vain therefore is the devise of Paracelsus that the Star Zedo is the one only and singular Architector of the Dropsie For the cause is in our innermost parts and in the very Beginnings of Life but not to be so far fetched and Cured For the Dropsie is not the workmanship of the Stars neither is there such an ordination of the Stars neither is that of concernment although Mercurie being seperated dead from its Vein doth truly and perfectly cure the threefold Dropsie For Mercurie is an Analogical and feigned Name neither doth it denote a Star but a running Mettal For what doth a Name that is Metaphorically feigned belong unto the feigned Star of Zedo For metallick Mercury is neither a Star nor kills a Star nor hinders its operation nor dis-joynes the conjunction of a Star with us if there were any For the Stars are the occasions of Meteors but of Diseases occasions onely by accident For primarily they are the Causes of times or seasons and of the Blas of a Meteor but secondarily and by accident they disturbe our Bodies proyoke Diseases or ripen the occasional matter But Causes by accident do not respect Cures but fore-cautions especially where Causes per se or by themselves do operate with or in us by a proper motion and appointment of their own seeds For indeed the left Kidney of the Treasurer is stuffed or condensed with the more dry Blood the left part of his Abdomen is extended and presently waxeth hard the right part being safe His Leg also presently swels and afterwards his Thigh on his left side and therefore the extension of his Belly is extended not by reason of the quantity of water onely but his Membranes are extended from the Disease it self no otherwise than as the Artery under a hard pulse But the Membranes are extended and contracted also before a plenty of water by the same workman which begets the Dropsie Indeed it contracts all the pores of the Membrane that they cannot transmit or send the Wind or Liquor thorow them when as otherwise in those that are alive that is healthy the whole Body is perspirable and conspirable or inspirable The Treasurer therefore first of all makes a little water the Dropsie straightway invades him by degrees and begins on his left Side And therefore presently after its Beginning his left Leg is besieged by an Oedema and afterwards his whole Body becomes swollen But why doth not his right Kidney draw the Urine nor transmit it the which otherwise happens when but one Kidney is besieged by the Disease of the Stone For therefore there is a double Kidney by Nature and a single Spleen or Milt that one may relieve another in their troubles and banishments of an Excrement Yea and from hence it is sufficiently manifest that the Spleen is not a sink nor emunctory Therefore in the Blood being chased out of the Veins deteined and condensed there is an exciting ferment such as is wanting to the Stone I will therefore declare the whole order of the matter so far as my Observation hath taught me For the Liquor Latex unknown to the Schooles as long as it is carried with the Blood in the Veins or to the Glandules it enjoyes a common life neither doth it obey the rules of water-drawing Organs But it knowes not upwards and downwards because it hath it not But it being once rejected out of the fellowship of Life now it undergoes the nature of an Excrement and hastens downwards as being burthened with its own weight Therefore the Latex is of a vile esteem And therefore as oft as every Bowel is ill affected it presently neglects the Latex and excludes it from the company of its Venal Blood and findes business enough for it self at home for its own defence The Latex therefore being once divorced elsewhere and spoiled of the society of Life doth presently receive
all the Fibers of roots do at length end into the Trunk it self which is called the Root But what are the Channels whereby the Liver conveyeth the Matter or Water of the Dropsie as it were by the hand unto the space of the Abdomen If those are the sober veins whereby that Membrane of the Abdomen or Peritoneum is nourished Why at least-wise hath the Liver rather designed these veins and doth aflict these places when as it might far more commodiously expel such superfluous Water by the fundament veins before the Liver be burdened with its importunity and weight Because they are those which seem to be dedicated unto the easing of burdens In the mean time it is certain that the Latex or matter of the Dropsie doth swim in the veins which are beneath the Liver seeing it is not then rightly separated by the Urine At least-wise however it be taken the Liver is not able to super-adde even on the only drop more unto the Abdomen being now extended into a huge heap and hardness by reason of an heap of water but that the mouths of those veins being open as it were by a Floudgate broken open the Dropsical watter should retire and regorge out of the whole Abdomen into the Liver For first of all the mouths of the veins ending into the Membrane or Filme of the Abdomen or neather part of the Belly have not all of them folding doors applyed unto them like Bag-pipes restraining the in-snuffed Wind and Latex within And then if they should have such folding doors at least-wise the Liver wanteth an expulsive faculty of so great force but rather the Liver it self and the channels of the veins should sooner chap and crack than they can super-add the contained water to the hydropical Abdomen being extended into an immense hardness In the next ylace if any such veins do end at the Prison of the Dropsie for its nourishment at least-wise they are the Daughters of the vena cava or hollow vein And so all the water should be in the Liver and the hollow vein before it is in the Abdomen and those Bowels should be swollen into an huge hardness Yea all the Dropsical Blood should be nothing but meer water which is false And the Schooles will grant me of their own accord that the water of the Dropsie should be emunged by the Reins before it should come unto the Abdomen unless the vice and offence should be rather of the Reins than of the Liver For sanguification belongs to the Liver but the sepatation of the Latex from the venal Blood is before and belongs to another Workman than the Liver For the Latex is in the meats and drinks from the beginning and is essentially separated by the Gall until it assumes the nature of a certain Salt and changeth its sharpness into saltness and remaineth locally well mixed with the venal Blood until it having obtained the last supply of Urine being attracted by the Reins is expelled The Reins or Kidneys therefore are governours of the Latex as the Liver is of the venal blood And then the water of the Dropsie is the Latex not likewise as yet Urine whose ferment seeing it is dungy and is imprinted by the Reins that Latex is not yet Urine The expulsion therefore of the Latex into the Abdomen is rather the Office of the Reins than of the Liver And therefore the Kidneys as it were repenting them with an after return have oftentimes also fetched back the water laid aside in the Abdomen and have voluntarily restored health from the Dropsie Then also sanguification or Blood-making is not hurt or hindred in the Dropsie neither do Hydropical Persons wax dry through a penury of Blood for as much as they are choaked with an abundance of the Latex But if in a Dropsie Blood doth not abound yet that comes not to pass because the Liver denyeth the framing of venal Blood but because the Blood is even diminished by a forreign thief yea neither doth the Liver vitiate the Blood being made by it self seeing they are opposites and unco-sufferable actions to wit Sanguification and Destruction of Blood For the Kidney hath received the dominion of the water so that the drink failing it vitiates the Blood and transchangeth it into Urine which things being unknown medicines for a distempered Liver have proved unsuccessful For what more blockish thing hath been ever declared than because the Liver is the shop of venal blood therefore it is also the shop of water and of wind for a Tympany The water is colder than the blood Therefore the Liver in the Dropsie laboureth with a cold distemper For the water is not so much generated in a Dropsie as it is reserved in as much as it is not expelled But whence in the whole systeme of Diseases is there so slothful a blindness of the Schooles Whence so wan experiences about the Sick do they not find themselves forsaken by the truth of God because they have delivered themselves over unto Heathenish Doctrines with a stubborn sloath Indeed I sometimes sticking in the manner of making a Dropsie did in times past believe that the water was made in the Abdomen it self but not to be derived thither seeing that it should else regorge thorow the same channels through which it was conveyed by reason of too much extension but I knew that the water or wind was breathed into the Abdomen more strongly than by any Bellows if by Pipes it were led thither especially because those passages ought successively and frequently to open and gape to wit as oft as the water should droppingly depart unto the extended Abdomen But after that I saw the Dropsie to be perfectly cured of its own accord by Urine and the whole water by a remedy to be expelled through the Kidneys I also undoubtedly beleived that the water was brought into the Abdomen through the same passages by which it being fetched back doth proceed unto the Reins in the curing of a Dropsie Therefore I was bound to acknowledge other wayes and to desert my former opinion Especially because I found sparing Urins in a Thirsty and Drunken Dropsie Indeed the water is loosed through the same passages whereby it was conveyed into the Abdomen These things I have known and believed because I have seen them But I could not come unto the knowledge of those passages as neither of that violence which might extend the Abdomen more strongly than Bellows and nevertheless by a continual drop might as yet increase it Those passages are hitherto unknown to Anatomists and the manner whereby the tumour ariseth unto so great an extension is touched by none or lightly searched out The great things of God in nature I humbly reverence and greatly admire For I am astonished at the furies of the Archeus and the every where excentrical varieties of these whereby he sometimes encloseth water at another time wind in the Prison of the Abdomen even until the
Serpent prescribeth to himself Worships and Liturgies or praying services for those things whereof he hath no power in his hand but to re-smite the smiting Witch as it naturally reflects the enchantments on its own Author So perhaps it might by those who are un-discreetly scrupulous be despised for a Superstitious means but surely it is even so as it is lawful by a natural right to repulse force with force especially if that thing doth not happen so much from anger or hatred as from ones own defence and for averting of hurt which the moderation of an unblamed defence doth distinguish Wherefore even as I have already demonstrated that the most powerful or especial force of an enchantment doth depend on a natural Idea of the Witch So also it follows that the aforesaid repercussion or re-smiting is altogether lawful by reason of the natural Idea of desire whereby any one doth desire and endeavour to rid himself of the enchantment And so in repercussion none follows or is provoked or allured by virtue of the Covenant with the Evil Spirit Yea that re-smiting alone doth manifest the force of an enchantment to be altogether natural as also the impotency of the Devil In the mean time that most unhappy and wholly proud on being ashamed to confess his own impotency decieves his credulous Impes they thinking him to be the only Master bestower and ruler of that malignant and hurtful activity Wherefore also they adore the same with a serious Worship and obey him in all his Mockery Poysons therefore being thus gotten when as Satan cannot infect and confect them according to his desire as neither suit them at his pleasure and much less apply them he commands that that thing be wholly compleated by his bond-slaves that poysons may be made capable of issuing forth into the proper object of his desire For so Poysons which before were either wholly material or things altogether indifferent nor could they hurt unless by chance they were assumed or taken into the Body do now hurt Formally Seminally and Formentally through poysonous Idea's being injected CHAP. LXXVII These things which follow the Author left more imperfect undigested and uncorrected than those aforegoing SInce it hath already been demonstrated that every Disease doth consist in the Life of the sensitive Soul and in the Archeus the vital Organ hereof but that this Archeus doth conclude in him a unity and identity hereafter from hence also we must teach that curing and restoring from all Diseases doth consist in the Unity of a Remedy But the Schooles of the Humourists will argue on the contrary and will say c. Now therefore a necessity of recovery from the peace of occasional Causes with the Life being proved and so that almost all universal Secrets do prevaile unto the aforesaid appeasing and pacifying of the vital Archeus Now next it behoveth me to descend unto those very Arcanum's or Secrets and not only to hand them forth by denominating of them but also so far as charity toward my Neighbour doth permit to describe the same unto the skilful lovers of Medicine But it is not lawful to make them openly manifest that the unskilful and such as only gape after a little advantage or gain may dispose of them and commit them to the Apothecary and his wife God forbid for I have been better instructed c. I will therefore speak so far as the order of charity doth permit about the revelations of Arcanums First of all therefore Nature hath produced by the goodness of God singular or particular remedies in the vegetable Monarchy whereby Diseases also are singularly or particularly restored and cured which hitherto through a sloath of diligent searching and a covetous desire and envy of the Devil have remained hidden For so the Elixir of propriety according to Paracelsus cureth the Asthma Falling-sickness Apoplexie Palsey Atrophia or Consumption for lack of Nourishment Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs c. But because that Elixir is not prepared but by a most skilful Phylosopher who not by thinking but by knowing is perfectly and moreover doubly chosen hereunto and so hath obtained the title of an Adeptist Hence therefore out of compassion I will unfold a middle way Take of clear Aloes of the Best Myrrhe and of the best Saffron of each an ounce for if thou shalt take more thou shalt find it to be done in vain Let the two former be exactly beaten but the Saffron because it is not beaten unless it be dryed let it rather be made into a round figure by pownsing let them be put in a most capacious and strong Glass and sealed with the melted neck of the Glass and let it be distilled with a moderate heat that the vessel burst not asunder until thou shalt see the whole lump to have grown together in the bottom and a cleer oyl with a water to be circulated in the sides of the Glass then let the neck of the Glass be opened and pour into a pint of Cinnamon water and distil it by moist sand whereon let boyling water be poured by degrees until not any thing doth any longer drop out of the beak of the Alembick and with this Medicine I have presently dissolved as well a Quartane Ague as a continual Fever So that he who over night had received his Sacro-sainted Viaticum and the extream unction of Oyle hath had me his Guest about his bed at dinner Nature hath also produced in the Sub-terranean or mineral Monarchy a certain Mineral the which for its singularity is called by Paracelsus the first or masculine Mettallus The which from its Metallick disposition is of necessity cloathed with Metallick Mercurie and Sulphur to wit of a liquid Mercurie not adhering to the fingers and of a Sulphur burnable with a skie-coloured flame But this Sulphur is distilled with its corrosive and so often cohobated or imbibed by pouring on it its own liquor until it pass thorow the Alembick in the forme of a red Oyl which Oyle is then at length most exactly cleansed from every whit of its corrosive not indeed prepared by a separation of its salt and Mercurie but anatically or unhurtfully reduced wholly into the form of an Oyl For that thing or matter as it is as yet oylie is not to be altered by the whole power of the sensitive Soul or to be applyed to the Life Wherefore it ought to be transchanged into a Mercurial juice which Paracelsus teacheth and calleth the Wine of Life because it doth not cure Diseases after the manner of other Arcanum's by a cleansing away and banishment of every hurtful matter besides it renewes the strength being lost in the Body in general and restoreth the inequalities of the strength And therefore neither is it in vain called by Paracelsus the Essence of the Members indeed the whole Spire and top of hope for long Life But how much Light I have brought unto the Writings of Paracelsus he alone hath known who
Ingredients of the Fountains of the Spaw What the Vitriol of Mars may be 4. Coagulation is never made without Dissolution nor this without that 5. Bodies do not act into each other 6. Between an Action there is the Odour of a dissolving Spirit 7. The dissolving Spirit is Coagulated 8. Why a vein of Iron is Invisible in the Waters 9. Why Waters do smell of Sulphur 10. Why Sharpnesse perisheth in the Waters and when 11. That which is manifest becomes hidden and that which is hidden is made manifest 12. Why not the Iron but the Vein may be said to be in Being 13. The Salt of Fountains doth not grow in the vein of Iron 14. Why one Fountain is stronger than another 15. The difference of Things contained in Fountains 16. Why the Fountain Savenirius is not translated elsewhere 17. Why the Water of Savenirius is the Lighter 18. The Spirit of Salt doth for some time operate upon a Vein VVRiters do with one accord affirm Water to be the continent of the Fountains of the Spaw But we differ from them only in their Original because it is that which brings no small moment unto the Nobility of the same But in respect of the thing contained in the Waters they far disagree from us For indeed they affirm that Vitriol is in the Water of the Spaw and that Calchitis or red Vitriol Mysy Sory Melantera or Blacking Salt Nitre that Nitre I say hath been found to be in them by the examination of Distilling which elsewhere they never saw because they testifie it is that which since the Age of Hippocrates had failed from thence Bitumen or a liquid Amber the pit Coal Alume Bole Oker Red-lead the Mother of Iron the Vein of Iron Iron Aerugo or Verdigrease burnt Chalcanthum Burnt Alume also the Flour of Brass and Sulphur have therein discovered themselves These things I say we read to be attributed by Authors unto the Fountain of the Spaw under their Mistris Uncertainty and so they doubting unto what Captain they may commit so great an Army do conclude that there are some Fountains in which thou mayest most difficulty discern an eminent Subterraneous Matter Elsewhere in the Fountains of the Spaw that a Heat of Vitriol is tempered with the Cold of Red-lead and Brass In another place that the Fountains of the Spaw are actually cold and moist but in Power or Virtue which one Physitians do examine to be hot and dry and therefore especially because they extinguish Thirst At length they say that there is the Faculty of Iron Sulphur Vitriol and of other mineral Things in these Fountains yet an uncertain Proportion of the first Qualities remaining whether thou dost consider the Variety of subterraneous Things or the various Disposition of the Drinkers And I also read that that is to be noted That the Fountain Savonirius puts on it rather the Virtues of mineral Things than their Substance that is Faculties above without or not substantial ones For elsewhere they say that Fountains wax sharp by Vitriol alone and that Vitriol is of a most sharp Savour but in another place with Diascorides they find in Vitriol more of an ungrateful and earthy astriction than of a sharpness Lastly even as nought but the extream torture of the Fires doth allure forth a most sharpe Oyl out of Vitriol to wit a hungry and sulphurous Salt elevating the brassy Spirits So from hence they suppose Fountains to wax sharp and not otherwise to wit that such an Heat in the Earth doth stir up the sharp Spirits of Vitriol unto the Superficies of the Earth which being there constrained by Cold and changed into a sharp Matter are co-mixed with the neighbouring Fountain Which Position many Anguishes do accompany First Because there is no such voluntary Distillation in the Universe And then because at least the inward parts of the Earth according to Hippocrates are Cold in Summer to wit when the Water of the Spaw is at best Thirdly Because the Spirit of Vitriol cannot but gnaw the Earth or Rockie-stones which it toucheth and therefore put of all sharpness which is vainly dedicated to Fountains Fourthly Because in Summer the coldness of the Earth is not in its Superficies only because it is more in condensing the Spirits than the more inward Parts from whence they imagine the Spirits to be chased through the force of heat Fifthly Because the Spirits of Vitriol being immingled with the Water although negligently locked up do neither lay aside their sharpness nor are they tinged with a ruddie colour the which notwithstanding is altogether social unto Fountainous Waters Hitherto the Opinion of others hath led me aside I will confess my Blindness I at sometime seriously distilled Savenirius and Pouhontius and indeed I found not so great a Catalogue of Minerals yea not any thing in them besides Fountain-water and the Vitriol of Iron by other Writers before me neglected But the Vitriol of Mars consisteth of the hungry Salt of embryonated Sulphur and of the Vein of Iron not of Iron which Vein the hungry Salt being as yet volatile hath by licking corroded In which Act of corroding there is made a certain kind of Dissolution of the Vein it self and a coagulation or fixation of the volatile Salt The Salt I say as long as it is volatile that is apt by being pressed by the Fire to fly away is reckoned among Spirits But Bodies do not corrode Bodies as such neither do fixed things act on or into each other but only as one of them is volatile that is a Spirit whether it be grown together or liquid In the next place in all solution as may be seen in the activity of Aqua Fortis distilled Vinegar c. Some Exhalations are stirred up being before at quiet which as they are wild ones they do not again obey coagulation therefore the Waters do of necessity fly away or being restrained do burst the Vessels But besides that also is afterwards to be noted that how much of the Spirits hath compleated the solution of the Body so much also it hath assumed a corporality in the solved Body From hence therefore a reason plainly appeareth why the Waters of the Spaw in so great a clearness or perspicuity do hide in them the dark Body of the Vein of Iron Next why in the activity of an hungry Salt they do cast a smell of Sulphur notwithstanding the corporal Sulphur be absent At length it is also easie to be seen why the Waters about the end of their activity for that speediness of solution doth continue a longer or shorter time in diverse Fountains do loose their Sharpness and why the Vein being before transparent doth then appear ruddy To wit the Spirits being now partly chased away or the same being weakened and coagulated at the end of Activity the imbibed Vein settles and is manifested which before had remained hidden the Waters in the meantime recovering their natural or proper Simplicity Furthermore it is not
idly to be denyed that Iron or the Fragments of Iron are in the Fountains of the Spaw but the Vein of Iron to be in them For truly there doth more Virtue occur in the Vein than in the Iron to wit of those subtile Parts which the Furnace filched away in time of Fusion Wherefore the Juice Spirit or hungry Salt call it as thou listest doth not grow within the Vein of the Iron so that there may be a like co-melting of both in the Waters far be it The Salt hath obtained other Wombs in the Earth from whence the Water sliding by melts that Salt and snatcheth it away with it self as it were a Cousin-germane being once the Son of another Water But if therefore it be the longer detained in a notable hollowness about the Vein it suppeth up more of the Vein into it self as doth Pouhontius and this the Fountain Geronster doth as yet more amply do But Tonneletius being richer than the two foregoing Fountains in a hungry Salt yet is poorer than the same in the Vein For from hence it is Cold and more troublesome to the Stomack Therefore which-soever Fountain doth more provoke Stoole is the more fertile in the Vein Neither indeed was that thing unknown to the Antients who used the Scale of Iron for the loosing of the Belly Virgins also taking Stomoma or the Powder of Steel are wont also to vomit on the first dayes Geronster therefore hath received more of the Vein than Tonneletius but as much of Salt but mitigated by reason of the Activity of the Vein received into it and therefore that Salt hath become more gross and corpulent But Savenirius is far more washy in Waters having the least of the Vein and hungry Salt and therefore it sooner finisheth the Action of the hungry Salt and Vein and the Medicinal water sooner dyeth And for the same Cause it most easily passeth thorow the Stomack is sooner concocted and doth penetrate The presence therefore of the Spirit acting into the Vein enlargeth the Pores in the Water and works up the Water of the Fountain unto a lighter weight It is further to be noted that even as in Wines and unripe Oyl of Olives there is a fermental boyling up So the Action of the hungry Salt it self is made And not only upon the Vein while it gnaws and passeth thorow the same but also it operates for some time upon the same being snatched away with it Pouhontius I say far longer than Savenirius c. until that the Activities of the Spirits being worn out of exhausted as well the Agent as the Patient the thing dissolving I say like as also the thing to be dissolved do decay or faile in the same endeavour CHAP. XCVIII A Fifth Paradox 1. The virtues of a hungry Salt 2. The effect of obstruction 3. How far Fountains may act in a Man 4. Whom they may not help 5. An example of an effect by it self and by accident 6. A Woman is subject unto double Diseases 7. The faculties of the Vein of Iron 8. An objection 9. A Solution 10. After what manner Iron opens and after what manner it doth binde 11. A proof by an allied Example 12. Whether they are convenient in the Stone and how far 13 That is a Cloakative Cure which doth onely expell the Stones 14. The Waters of the Spaw are for a Cause that the Stone doth the more easily re-increase or grow again 15. Wherein the true Cure of the Stone is placed 16. From whence the remedy is to be fetched and of what sort it is 17. The first qualities are in Fountains 18. Water not Air is Internally moist 19. The Virtues of Rellolleum and Cherto 20. An objection 21. A resolution thereof WE being now about to Treat in a brief Method concerning the Virtues of the Fountains of the Spaw and being to speak by the Rule of a supply will resume that no other Natural Endowments are to be found than those which are drawn out of a hungry Salt and the dissolved Vein of Iron Wherefore seeing a hungry Salt dissolves Muscilages cleanseth them away consumes them and sends them forth therefore first of all it helps Stomacks that are beset with Muckiness also by the same endeavour it dispatcheth the same preter-natural sliminess which we have called a Coagulable excrement of things in us being crept a little more deeply and inwards as well into the innermost Chambers of the Veins as into those of any Bowell but by so much the slower by how much farther it hath taken its Journey from the mouth Hence it doth not sluggishly succour the obstructions arisen in the Liver Spleen and Kidneys and Fevers the Dropsie and Jaundise bred from thence For the matter obstructing being consumed the obstruction ceaseth which otherwise seeing it is a hinderance whereby the Spirit of Life may spring the less freely throughout all Places and perform its offices Therefore it deprives the parts which are behind it in a future order of a Vital Communion and consequently calls for Putrefactions Therefore the Waters of the Spaw being drunk are convenient altogether in all Diseases which arise from the Enemy Tartar being received and Coagulated within besides Nature So that a sufficient Root of Life be remaining that is if they are drunk seasonably enough Yet with that adjoyned Limitation that the Power of the Waters doth not Transcend the Hypochondrials or places about the short Ribs For the Waters do not reach beyond the Reins to wit unto the Heart Lungs or Brain Wherefore also the Waters of the Spaw do not succour those affects which are Naturally or peculiarly from a property of Passion unless by accident The reason is Because seeing Minerals are altogether unapt for nourishment they are banished out of the Body with the Urine the last excrement of Salts to wit the Commerce whereof the lively Arterial blood doth no longer suffer Therefore if they may seem to bring any help unto the Head Heart or Lungs all that is to be reckoned to happen by a withdrawing of the affect which causeth a distemperature therein by a Secondary Passion and consent In the next place neither do the Waters of the Spaw profit in Epidemical Endemical and Astral Diseases as are the Plague Plurisie burning Coal c. as neither do they very much profit in those Diseases wherein a Poison subsisteth being either inwardly received or bred or participated of from contagion As also neither in Diseases of Tincture such as are the Leprosie Pox or Foul Disease the Morphew Cancer Falling-Evil c. Wherefore we do not well agree with those who commend the Water of the Spaw for all Diseases altogether without Exception And so that they extoll the same even unto blasphemy To wit There is no cause that we having obtained the Fountains of the Spaw should now henceforeward be amazed at the Miracles of Ancient Waters or of the Fish-Pool of Siloah or of Jordan curing of Naaman seeing here also we see those
the buisie enquirers of the unexpected chance of which thing it was found that the Porter gave up the Ghost perhaps at the same moment wherein the Nose grew cold There are those yet surviving at Bruxels that were eye Witnesses of these Things Is not that Magnetism of manifest affinity with Mummy whereby the Nose by the right of ingraftment rejoycing for so many Months in a common Life Sense or Feeling and vegetative Faculty suddenly mortified on the further side of the Alpes What I pray is there in this of Superstition What of a fond Imagination The Root of the Carline-thistle which is that of Chamileon being plucked up when full of Juice and Virtue and co-tempered with the Mummy of Man doth as it were by a Ferment exhaust all the Powers and natural strength out of a Man on whose shadow thou treadest into thy self But this thou wilt say is full of deceit because Paradoxical as if the same Leprosie were not tranferred out of Naaman into Gehazi and the same numerical Jaundises transplanted into a Dog for a Disease is not in the Predicament of Quality but all the Predicaments are in every particular Disease For truly it shall not be lawful to accommodate or suite things to names but names to things The Solisequous or Sun-following Flowers are carried after the Sun by a certain Magnetism or Attraction not indeed by reason of his heat which they may desire for in a cloudy and more cold day they also imitate the Meeter of the Sun nor also by reason of his Light are they the Lackeys of the Sun for in the dark night when they have left the Sun they incline from the West to the East Thou wilt not account this to be diabolical because there is another privie Shift at hand to wit that there is a Harmony of superiour Bodies with Inferiour and an attractive Faculty plainly Celestial in no wise to be communicated unto sublunary things As if indeed the Microcosme or little World being unworthy of a heavenly Condition could in his Blood and Moss take notice of no revolution of the Stars I might speak of Amorous or Love-Medicines which require a Mumial co-fermenting that Love or Affection may be drawn unto a certain Object But it is more Discretion to pass them by when I shall first have mentioned this one only Example I have known an Herb in many Places easie to be seen the which if it be rubbed and cherished in thy Hand until it shall wax warm and thou presently shall hold fast the hand of another Person until that also grow warm he shall continually burn with a total Love of thee for some dayes I held in my hand the Foot of a certain little Dog and this Dog presently so followed me a stranger that his Mistris being renounced he howled in the night before my chamber Door that I might open unto him There are some present at Bruxels who are my Witnesses of this deed For the heat first heating the Herb I say not a bareheat but being stir'd up by a certain Efflux of the natural Spirits limits the Herb unto it and individuates it to it self and this ferment being received doth by Magnetism draw the Spirit of that other Person and subdue it into Love I leave the Cures of many Sicknesses which the secret of humane Blood doth magnetically perfect For unless the Blood yea the corrupt Pus or Matter of Wounds or Ulcers the Urin and transpirable Efflux through the Pores of the Skin shall continually mow down or carry away with them something of the Vital Spirit and there were in these a certain Participation of the whole Body when they are out of their natural composed Body surely the dayes of Man should not be so short For this indeed hath been the cause of our intestine Calamity The herbs Arsmart or Water-Pepper Comfry Flixweed or Luskewort Dragon-Wort Adders-Tongue and many others have that peculiar Endowment that if being cold they are steeped in Water for a felled Oake when the North-Wind blows will grow wormy if not forthwith sunk under Water and if being for some time applyed on a Wound or Ulcer they grow warm and are presently buried in a muddy place When they begin to putrifie they are also busie in drawing from the sick Party whatsoever is hurtful unto him And that thing the Herbs accomplish not as long as they grew in the Earth nor also as long as they remain in their antient Form for it behoves the Grain to die that it may bring forth Fruit but in the Putrefaction of their Body their Virtues being now as it were loosed from the Bolt of their Body do freely uncloath themselves of that Magnetism otherwise sleeping and hindered and according to the contagion and impression received from the wounded or ulcerated Place do suck out much remainder of Evil even at a far distance If any one in gathering the Leaves of Asarabacca shall pluck them upwards they will purge another that is a third Person who is ignorant of that drawing by Vomit only but if in cropping they are wrested downwards they will expurge only by Stool Here at least-wise doth no Superstition subsist or lurk for why do I here make mention of Imagination seeing ye grant that nothing can thereby operate on a third Object especially where that Object is ignorant of the manner of gathering which the Cropper used Wilt thou perhaps again accuse of an implicite compact and lay hold on the sacred Anchor of ignorance But here lurks no vain observance especially when as the gatherer shall pluck off the Leaves either upward or downward the receiver being ignorant thereof Truly besides Asarabacca and the outmost parts of Elder no other purging Medicines have that Endowment the which after what manner soever they are gathered do alwayes univocally or singly operate But in Asarabacca in the entire Plant a magnetical Property shines forth and so it variously endoweth its Leaves according to the sense of their gathering But that not only Plants but also almost all created things have a certain delineation of sense they do largely confirm as well by Antipathy as Sympathy which cannot consist without sense which thing we shall by and by teach Another new Fit of the Gout surprized a noble Matron of my acquaintance after one Fit had departed and that Gowt by an unwonted recourse molested her for many Months without remission But she not knowing from whence so great and unexspected a relapse of the Disease befel her at length now rising from her Bed as oft as the heat of the Fit was slackened sate down in a seat wherein her Brother being Gowty and that in another City had in times past wont to sit and indeed she forthwith found that from thence the Disease did revive a-fresh Verily the Effect is in no wise to be ascribed to Imagination or scrupulous Doubt because both these were such as were much more modern than the Effect But if in the same Seat
drying of Clay that is made by heat Learn ye therefore oh ye Schooles of me an unprofitable and the least of young Beginners that heat is through occasion of the loines but not the occasion of the stone or of the adhering sand That is the stone is not from heat but heat from the stone even as heat ariseth in the finger from a Thorne being thrust into it but the Thorne is not there made by heat For ye have heard the wailings of the Strangury or piâsing by drops but not of heat in the stone of the Bladder even as otherwise ye have heard complaints of heat in the Disease of the stone of the Kidnies wherefore if heat were the efficient cause of the stone there would be far greater complaints in the stone of the Bladder Because this stone by reason of its greater hardnesse should also be the of-spring of a greater heat and drying than that of the Reines And the rather because that doth almost continually swim in the Latex or urinal Liquor whereas the Kidney doth not any thing detain the trans-sliding uâine Surely the stone of the Bladder should have need of a violent heat For the diseased complain of a sharpnesse burning heat and pain But these things are not felt in the nest of the Stone even as in the Nut of the Yard Therefore Children have known how to distinguish of the sense and place of sharpnesse and pain but not the Schooles But moreover although the urine may seem biting and sharp as if there were the burning of fire as in the Strangury yet being voided it is not any thing more hot or sharper to the tast or more salt than it was wont or is meet to be There is an apparent burning and tartnesse of the urine not indeed from a true heat or any sharpnesse of the urine but onely by reason of the forreignnesse of some certain small quantity of sharpnesse through a Ferment being co-mixed therewith which thing the Strangury teacheth being contracted by new Ales and those as yet fermenting from a sharpnesse Therefore Macc or Saffron being taken for they must be sharp and hot Medicines yea reaching to the very place if they ought to help and therefore by their odour testifying their presence in the urine the aforesaid burning heat for the most part ceaseth For it is a Philosophical truth that the stone increaseth by the same causes whereby it ariseth and so on the other hand But stones being joined to our Chamber-pots do confirm that the stone is naturally made and at leastwise without an actual heat of the Chamber-pot and encompassing Ayr or that heat is not required unto its constitution therefore the stone is made and increased materially of the urine but not of a vital muscilage nor that it doth require heat for its efficient cause and much lesse an excesse of the same heat For the mucky snivel doth not appear rejected or cast forth unlesse the stone be first present in the Bladder and so the cause as slow should have come after its effect For I have observed that if any one did pisse through a thick Towel and found not a muscilage herein yet but a few houres after that time his urine being strained thorow and filtred into a clean Glass had yielded a thin and red sand equally adhering thereunto neither also had it fallen down more plentifully about the bottome than it stuck about the sides of the Glasse And that thing had thus happened in a cold encompassing Ayr. Wherefore even from thence any one ought to be more assured that that sand had not gone forth with the urine in the beginning of his making water because it was not yet bred neither that it was actually in the urine For otherwise it had stood detained in the Towel however thin it had been like the atomes of Potters earth Or if the Towel being not thick enough had deceived him yet at least it had presently rushed unto the bottome in the likenesse of sand or a settlement neither had it affixed it self in its making in so great a grain and with so great a distance of equality to the sides of the Vessel Because it had wanted a glew whereby it might have been able to glew it self thereunto In the next place seeing that sand wants a glew throughout its whole Superficies except in that part wherein it adheres to the Chamberpot or Urinal it is sufficiently manifest that at one and the same instant wherein that sand was made it was likewise also glewed thereunto For from thence any one ought to be the more assured if he had ever toughly laboured in a diligent searching out of the truth that since that sand applyed it self to the Glasse of its owne free accord that it was also generated far after the making water to wit in the immediate instant before its affixing but that it being affixed however the most small it was in it self it afterwards encreased by additions Which effects indeed as they are wrought by a common nature growing or glistening in the urine and not from a particular atome of sand which affixed it self to the Vessel Hence also it equally departed and that at once out of the whole urine For from this so ordinary and daily handicraft Operation if the love of Health were cordially seated in the Schooles they ought for some Ages before now to have known nor indeed from an argument drawn from a Similitude and far fetcht but altogether from the Identity or same linesse of the urine and stony sand it self that for as much as that sand had grown together from the matter of the urine to wit of the same matter from whence the stone also was and that indeed though a muscilage of the matter and heat of the place were absent for the pewter Chamberpot stands in the cold encompassing ayr and likewise without the suspition of the affect of the stone or an infirmity of the pisser for also any the unblamed urine of healthy persons generates this sand and applyes it self to the urine therefore the sand and stone in us proceeds from stony causes to wit the same from which the urine becomes of a sandy grain in the Glasse without us being also healthy persons Which thing being by me seen I seriously sighed and certainly knew that the Schooles had erred in the knowledge of the cause and that they do even to this day stumble in curing of the Stone the which notwithstanding they rashly assume to themselves and presume of I greatly bewailed the stupidities and false devices of so many Ages and more that the unhappy Obediences strict Clientships paines and deaths of the sick the untimely destructions of Families and lastly the spoyles of Widows and Orphans had happened under unfaithful an ignorant helpers who deceived the World with the name of Phisitians For then I knew in good earnest that I knew nothing who had learned my princiciples from such as knew nothing I therefore disdaining the
that which was for coagulating of Aqua vitae 2. That in coagulating it had separated the sluggish and watery part which swum upon the aforesaid white lump perhaps no otherwise than as in coagulation of Duelech from the rest of the body of the urine and so that it perfected its coagulation in the middle of the waters 3. That the curdy Runnet or spirit of Urine had undissolveably knit it self to the spirit of Wine 4. That it is not a perpetual truth the which notwithstanding the Schooles hand forth instead of a Chymicall Maxime that every sharp coagulating Body did by the same endeavour dissolve its own Compeere 5. That the spirit of Urine had not coagulated it self in the Glass according to the powder of a beaten Duelech but onely that it had mingled and coagulated it self together with another thing namely with the spirit of Wine 6. That if therefore it had met with an earthly spirit it had also contracted wedlock with the same so as that of both spirits it had made a stony Body 7. I likewise learned after what manner the spirit of urine might coagulate another spirit within the urine 8. That such an association is not a certain naked co-mixture of parts but an undissolvable wedlock of unity a certain substantial transmutation a production of a new Being by an Agent and a Patient into a neither Body This experiment gave me an entrance for a diligent search into the Disease of the Stone Yet I as yet remained wandring about For after giving of thanks I transferr'd my self into a meditation how many ways a thing might be condensed or coagulated in the Universe For Ice first presently offered it self unto me wherein the water incrusts it self for fear of cold and from a primitive action but is not actively congealed by cold Even as elsewhere concerning the Elements But other Bodies which are believed to be mixt as they bewray themselves to be the true Fruits of water by the same Zeal and Tenour are they congealed by cold occasionally For so Bones and a Sword are more easily broken in time of cold Seasons than in time of heat or Summer 2. Any kind of Salts according to their Species and inbred property while their brine being not sufficientts dryed up is left in the cold are separated from their water and become corny 3. If Salts shall subdue any thing by gnawing it they pass over from their native condition into a neither Body and are coagulated For so the Tartar of Wine Sope Borace c. are coagulated 4. And then Muscilages being thickned by the wedlock of their seeds and resolved from their own Body become Glews Gums Solder c. 5. But if a muscilage or slimy juyce carries a co-mixed fat with it it is coagulated in both respects So are Aloes a Chibal Pitch Rosin Gum Ammoniacum Frankinsence Myrrh Mastich the Gum Opopanax Sarcocolla Assa Elemi c. 6. Earth converting into a salt or muscilage if it be dryed is condensed and waxeth hard 7. A mineral Salt that was bred in the earth by burning stonifies into stones shells or sheards and earthen Pots 8. The which if they are urged by a stronger degree of heat they at length vitrifie or become Glass 9. The watery Leffas or planty juyce of the Earth by vertue of the seeds is hatdened into Woods Herbs c. 10. So Water by vertue of a seed is made a rocky stone 11. A muscilage being joyned to a powder or dust makes sand-stones but with dust and lime it now dissembles divers Marbles 12. Whatsoever lime dissolved comprehends or encloseth in it self that thing coagulates with it Because there are in Lime two salts the one a lixivial Alcali salt and the other an acide or sharp one which two salts while they demolish each other are coagulated together 13. Mettals Fire-stones Sulphurs etc. do by vertue of their seeds obtain their own and proper coagulations 14. Also most things through an inbred Glew do voluntarily grow together which afterwards by drying do harden As Blood Cheese the white of an Egg Varnish c. 15. Glass is an earthen stone consisting of an Alcali salt The which while being fired it is dissolved makes the sand or powder of stone that is not calcinable nor otherwise capable of powring abroad to melt by corroding and so they are both together turned into a transparent lump Therefore the Lime-stone or rocky stone by reason of its sharp salt is unfit for Glass because the lime thereof destroyes the Glassifying Alcali and there is made a certain neutral thick or dark Body Lime therefore against the will of Galen very much differs from ashes To wit because this separates the Lixivium or lye from it self but the other containes a sharpnesse that is not separable from the whole Whereby it being at length burnt by too much fire is Glassified throughout its Lixivial part being unfit for Building According to Geber Because all fixed Bodies are at length Glassified with Glassifying things Cheese also as it is curdled by moderate sharpnesse so it is resolved with an eminent sharpness For the pating of Cheese dissolves with dry Calx vive or quick-Lime but not with the Alcali or Lixivial salt of Ashes From all the aforesaid particulars I have collected that the coagulation of Duelech is singular and irregular Lime also doth by degrees stonifie in the middle of the waters as its aforesaid salts do coagulate each other But the body of Man as it doth not coagulate a rocky stone so neither doth it endure a Calx or Lime-stone in the Bladder For indeed that admirable Coagulum or Runnet alwayes stuck before mine eyes whereby more swiftly than in the twinkling of an Eye the spirit of urine had condensed the spirit of Wine into a lump Therefore I discerned that all other Coagulations had nothing common with Duelech Wherefore I determined to examine Spirits Therefore first I distilled Horse-pisse But surely the spirit thereof wanted that Runnet Wherefore I noted with the highest admiration the singularity of mans Urine Afterwards I observed that the spirit of Sulphurs or of Salts being sharp would with an Alcalized body be made earthly For so with Iron is made drosse rust a cankered rust Ceruss c. And these Paracelsus rashly judgeth to be Tartars or the separated impurities of things over-covered with their own and that an inward Runnet when as otherwise they are nothing else but the astonishment of two mutual Agents to wit when both their strengths are spent Afterwards I long examined Salts throughout every of their Analysis or Re-solution and I discerned that the spirits of all salts were sharp except Alcalized ones and those of essential Sulphurs in Vegetables Whose saltish tartnesses indeed are fat and sulphurous neither readily reducible into a salt unlesse by a tedious inversion or turning in and out of the principles which salts being then as it were elixirated do represent the true and highest Crasis or constitutive
its drying something that is not fixed doth of necessity puff out Moreover let the Retorts be senced with a crust or parger which may neither cleave asunder nor contract chaps or fall down of its own accord or be too much glassified Let also the neck of the Retort which hangs out be most exactly connexed unto the large receiving vessel that not so much as the least thing may expire But let the Receiver be placed in moist sand likewise let the boughty part thereof be covered in a Sack being filled half full with moist sand Which Sack let it be divers times renewed being tinged in the coldest water But let half of the Retort be filled with poudered Vitriol But distill it by degrees and at length let it be urged with coal as much as is possible for the furnace of wind which is blown by its own iron grate But when the furnace of wind shall cease to dismiss the spirit into the receiving vessel let the porch be opened on the side by which way the Reverbery of the flame of the wood may pierce under the Retort and let it so continue for five or six nights with the highest fire possible to nature The Retort perhaps in so great a storm of the fire will seem to thee to melt but nevertheless it will endure constant throughout because the outward coat of male or fence of earth with-holds and sucks the glass and so it is englassened as much as shall be sufficient for the work At length remember thou to sequester the receiving vessel from the neck of the Retort the fire being as yet most ardent otherwise thou shalt see in a more cold station the spirits to return into the Lee or Dreg which spewed them our Then lastly take the Colcotar or Lee remaining of the distillation which thou hast reserved from true Cyprus Hungarian or at leastwise Goslarian Vitriol Let that residing dreg being co-mixed with Sulphur be again burnt unto the every way confuming of the Sulphur But afterwards thou shalt bedew and moisten this feces with the aforesaid spirit For that spirit as it is presently imbibed in the glassen dish or gourd so being fetcht again from thence it returns nothing but a watery and unprofitable phlegm the spirit having remained imbibed in the Colcotar And repeatingly renew thou that operation six or seven times until at length the spirit that is poured thereon wax red which will swim upon the Colcotar which is a sign that we must cease from the plenteousness of imbibing And so let this rich Colcotar being well dryed be put into a Retort and let this rich Colcotar be distilled even unto its utmost spirits now waxing yellow and casting the smelling odour of grateful honey Yet remember thou to draw away the receiving vessel from the Retort being as yet of a bright burning heat and that this spirit must be kept by the mouth of a more strong bottle being close stopped with wax Whereinto lastly if thou shalt cast water the vessel it self presently breaks asunder Therefore by the only spirit of the former distillation this second spirit is bridled or restrained whereof scarce one pound is poured over from bottle into bottle but there is made a loss of one ounce at least And likewise unless the Receiver be seasonably taken away from the Retort as I have said thou shalt see the Furnance being cooled that most potent spirit to have returned into Colcotas from whence it was struck out by fire Moreover the Lee of Colcotar which is left of the second distillation is as yet wholly Coppery and waxeth green after many fashions From whence 1. That is manifest which I taught before Namely that the fire of Venus is not to be drawn out and had but by an every way destruction and separation of the mettal 2. That this therefore must be done by a far more hidden way 3. That the Vitriol which is rich in Copper is less fit for distillation than otherwise the common Vitriol is 4. That the Vitriol of Copper poures forth the spirit of the Vinegar of a mineral salt but not the volatile Liquor of Copper 5. And therefore that the sulphur of Copper is rightly called the sulphur of the Philosophers being fit for long life Being sweet I say in tast but not tart or sharp 6. That the spirit of Vitriol which is above perfectly taught cures some Chronical Diseases 7. And that therefore the spirits of Vitriol hitherto sold and in use are nothing but a mineral Vinegar being also adulterated in it self 8. That the residing Colcotar is most rich in a Medicinal Virtue 9. That the preparation of Vitriol prescribed by Isaac Holland and other Moderns hath not sent the Arrows unto the true mark 10. That our spirit above described and thus rectified as it is volatile and salt proceedes even into the fourth Digestion and reolves diseasie Excrements that are met withall in its journey And by consequence also takes away the occasional cause of many Chronical or lingring Diseases I have therefore already delivered the like Form or manner of distilling the spirit of Sea-salt of Salt-peter and the like Yet thou shalt remember that Vitriol hath in it self the earth of Colcotar wherefore the other salts do desire dryed Potters earth and that being exactly admixed with them But besides I have already delivered the manner of preserving from the Disease of the Stone by Aroph and likewise by Ale boyled with the seed of Daucus or the yellow wild Carrot I might therefore desist and repose my Quill and leave the matter to others more successefull than my self by wishing that every one may henceforward add what things he shall find out to be farre better For since Duelech besiegeth onely mankind and is produced from Excrements themselves after an irregular manner but doth not arise after the manner accustomed to other infirmities Therefore it seems to be singularly bred for a revenge of sin even before other Diseases and to be permitted by God in Children being as yet Innocent for the averting of a greater evil For although some Bruits do generate small stones in themselves yet those stones are not bred in them from the Causes of Duelech nor appointed for a punishment or tribulations unto them but rather produced for the profit of man But if therefore Duelech doth relate to the fault of sin but since sin hath drawn its rise from a Wood or Tree it hath seemed also to me that preservation of health in the disease of the stone is not onely to be expected from the seed of Daucus and some such like Herb but from some certain Wood Wherefore it is indeed true that a Wood against the stone of the Kidneys hath been of late brought unto us out of the Indies but I have not ever therefore perswaded my self that divine Goodnesse had so long denyed unto the Europeans that it might succour even the poor man that had the stone untill that through many expences a Remedy
should after three thousand yeares at length flye unto us from the Indians which otherwise had been slow enough in it self The wild Carrot seed indeed preserves under a continual and strict obligation even as Aroph comforts the Kidneys by much cost I therefore have seriously enquired whether there were not a certain Wood familiar to our Countrymen which might supply the room of that Nephritical One at length sent us by the Barbariaus For truly the wood of Sin and the wood of Life were Trees but not shrubs and much lesse Herbs Wherefore I heretofore observed that it was a familiar or natural thing with the Princes of Germany that every Year in the third month called May they would against the affect of the stone drink daily a draught of the Liquor issuing out of the Bark of a wounded Birch-tree which Liquor they preserved from the corruption of the Ayr by pouring on it Oyle of Olives The Tree is wounded The Tree is called by the Germanes Bircken-Bawm but by our Countrymen Bircken-Boom For the Birk of the Birch-tree is wounded nigh the earth in the Trunk of the Tree in the first month called March about the time wherein the Vine being wounded is went to weep out a very young or tender Liquor drawn out of the earth But that Liquor of the Birch-tree is wholly watery and almost without savour But if any branch of bough of the thicknesse of three fingers be wounded unto its Semi-diameter and be filled up with Wool put into the place there presently weeps out a Liquor not ungratefull but somewhat sharpish which also in the very Torment of the Disease of the stone comforts the afflicted three or four spoonfulls thereof being taken That therefore is more meer or pure which flowes from above from the bought than that which flowes forth from beneath out of the Trunk But that is plainly watery which flowes forth nigh the earth For I presently considered that that happens as in ascending it might passe through a somewhat reddish Bark which was as it were the liver of the Tree But since that Bark was all the Year without any notable tast But the ourmost Bark being white and as it were membrany had a savour and perfume as it were of the best Turpentine I rent off the more outward Bark round from the Trunk about the space of half a foot and I observed that neverthelesse the Liquor which distilled from the Branches was of the same tast as before Therefore I wondered from whence that diversity of Liquors of one and the same Tree should spring In the next place I wondered that some one small bough should in one onely day easily weep out eight or ten pounds of Liquor which otherwise hath not need of so much nourishment for a whole Summer nor room wherein so much Liquor could be kept and much lesse doth the Root bestow so much Liquor by about tenfold on any of the other Branches yet neither therefore was there sufficient nourishment wanting to the other Branches although the Root had otherwise attracted that much quantity of that Liquor and had poured it forth through some other Branches I therefore considered that that Liquor was like unto the Sunovia or gleary water issuing out of a Wound Yea I began to detest it as if it contained in it the Contagion of Death or putrefaction neither that it could give Health if it did now bear it in a blemish of integrity Yet I certainly found that as well the wood it self of the Birch-tree as the red Bark thereof were spoyled of the faculty of Healing but that the white Bark or Rind outwardly growing to the more young Branches like Parchment being easily inflameable and marked with the âavour of Turpentine did scarce disperse a vertue from it self into a decoction Therefore I considered that the aforesaid vertue of the Liquor did not proceed from the Root not from the Wood next not from the somewhat red Bark as neither lastly from the white Rind because it was that which in many places was not con-tinual to it self in the Stem Therefore I tryed to distill that Bark both by it self and also with an addition of the Lixivium of Tartar but surely the Liquor that was dropt out of the Wound of the Bough or Branch did far excell the Oyle and distillation of the Barks Therefore I am reduced to acknowledge that that Liquor voluntarily flowing out of the wounded Branches so abundantly is the meer Balsam of the Disease of the stone neither doth that hinder it because through my wantonnesse I compared that Liquor unto water flowing out of a Wound or Ulcer For truly the Wound and Ulcer which in us brings or promiseth death brings or promiseth to the Birch-tree no such thing That Liquor therefore of the Birch-tree is a Medicine promised from Nature but procured by the Wounds and so it is to urge Nature to bring forth a Balsam naturally unto her the which else she will never bring forth Wherefore I commanded the young tender and somewhat blackish small Branches from whence the Brooms and Rods of our Country Folk are made which had swelling not yet leavie Buds being dashed with a Hammer upon a stone or Anvil to be boyled together in Water ordained for the making of Ale or Beer unto which Ale or Beer if afterwards I adjoyned the seed of Daucus or Brook-lime I obtained desireable effects for the prevention of the disease of the stone and those as yet more powerfull ones if that Liquor of March being collected from the upper Branches or Boughs had been poured into the Ale after the greatest settlement of its boyling or working which Wines and Ales do voluntarily undergo in Hogs-heads For first of all I have certainly found that that drink of the Birch-tree did take away the fear of Diureticks or Vrine-provokers Because it loosens the paines and Contractures of the disease of the stone as well in the Loines as in the Bowels for from hence the one onely disease of the stone stirs up even Colick paines no lesse than if the fewel thereof were in the Bowels and therefore also it heals Dysuries or difficulties of pissing and Stranguries or pissing by drops even in old Folks It likewise at first mitigates the heat of the Liver having arisen as it were from a Thorne thrust into it and afterwards takes it away Lastly A certain Bridegroom being bound up for five months that he could not reach to his Bride in the mean time begat his Chamber-maid with Child Afterwards chidings having arisen between the betrothed Couple the Bride said that she had dissembled that wickednesse with the Chamber-maid that she might perfectly espy whether he were cold ââ indeed mischiev'd and by what title she might attempt a divorce At length the Enchantment of that binding up was loosed by the drink of the aforesaid Ale and he was found to be mischiev'd but not to be cold Last of all A certain man making water according to
to their mind hurting most actions The top of the matter is that they call the Genus or general kind of the thing defined or the essence of a Fever not any kind of heat whatsoever but that which shall be besides nature and which shall hurt in its own degree And so seeing that heat is essential to a Fever that it ought chiefly to be so unseperable from a Fever that a Fever cannot be mentally conceived but that that heat is an individual companion thereunto First of all Camp Fevers have newly objected themselves the which happen without thirst and a manifest heat That is they finish their tragedy without heat from the beginning even unto the end of life If they say that these Fevers were unknown to the Antients nor therefore to be comprehended under the definition I at least conclude from thence that neither can these Fevers therefore be Fevers or that the essence of Fevers are not of necessity tied up to heat but only by accident And then again that the definition of Fevers from of old delivered and even till this day observed in the Schooles is not suitable to the nature of a Fever And thirdly that whosoever shall at the beginnings of Fevers feel cold pithily to pierce him for some houres may notwithstanding not perswade himself that a Fever is begun or present with him but some other affect hitherto unnamed For although he be shaken with vehement cold his teeth do shake and his lips look wan by reason of cold yet that he may perswade himself by those deformities that those beginnings of Fevers are not the beginnings of Fevers for neither is he extinct by a true Fever who dies in such beginnings the which for the most part comes to passe in intermitting Fevers Let him believe it that will for I am not wont to call to me any other judge concerning contingent things known by sense besides touching For I am so stupide that I stand to nought but the judgment of the senses concerning sensible objects But Physitians which are the more tough in the opinion of the Antients privily escape into lurking places that they may defend those things which are perceived by Galen for some will have it that cold or rigour are not the beginnings of Fevers but the beginnings of the fit But Galen himself casts down these men saying We understand first by the name of a Paroxismus or fit the worst part of the whole fit which soundeth that the fit and the Fever are Sunonymalls But come on then if cold bespeak the beginning of the fit and not of the Fever at leastwise the fit shewes the Fever approaching and so the beginning of a fit shall of necessity be the beginning of a Fever Others therefore had rather their eyes being opened not to see not to perceive wherefore they say that in very deed no true but a dissembling cold and a deceitfull allurement of the senses is felt in the beginning of a Fever and while they are externally cold they will have it that they are internally in a raging heat and are burnt with true heat although they perceive otherwise But such doatages any one will easily hisse out of the middle of the Country For a most intense or heightned cold besigeth their innermost parts for some houres For in so manifest and undoubted an History of cold which is that of the deed and sense they produce an argument wan enough there is they say a great heat within although not to be perceived because they are pressed with continual thirst the which as it is chiefly the betokener of drynesse yet this thirst in live bodies presupposeth an heat equal to it self And so thirst deserveth more Authourity than sense or feeling But they know not that this thirst proceeds not from heat as neither from drynesse even as it otherwise happens in natural thirst For therefore that neither is it appeased by drink being administred The which ought regularly to be done if that thirst did arise from drynesse or heat The thirst therefore is deceitfull but not the cold For the thirst ariseth from an excrement which badly affecteth that sensitive faculty and the organ thereof and deludes it no otherwise than as if great drynesse had suddenly come unto it For the sharp distillation of Sulphur which in it self is most dry and a corrosive is wont to mitigate that deceitfull thirst no otherwise than as water quencheth fire But at least wise our adversaries will not grant that dryth is taken away by the most dry remedies but not rather by the drinking of moist and cold things But why is it not lawfull by a like reason to divine that cold in the beginning of Fevers is from an unconquered drowsie affect Since the Schooles determine that the drowsie evil doth no lesse proceed from unvanquished cold than thirst from drynesse Neither doth that hinder that the drowsie evil is not present with all that have a Fever For it is suficient and brings the greater confusion that in some that have Fevers there is a frequent drowsinesse But at length whither will they escape if in the vigour of Fevers which is the hottest station of Fevers they grant not so great thirst to be as in the beginning thereof yet that the more inward parts do then according to sense especially burn with much perplexity wherefore if thirst bewray heat and the betokening hereof be unseperable from heat so as that those who tremble by reason of cold are neverthelesse said to burn the greatest thirst ought to presse under the hottest season of Fevers But they deny that what therefore will they do being taken in their own net Therefore they largely erre as many as give their judgments concerning the native roots of things from accidents following by accident It is therefore the part of deadly ignorance badly to have defined a Fever if they shall cure a Fever according to its definition Yea we must treat against them by the Law of Cornelius concerning privie Murtherers who obstinately badly cure those who have committed their life unto them because that through the guilt of whom so many ten thousands of millions are so unhappily killed And indeed if a Fever or Feverish heat for these two are in the Schooles Sunonymalls or of one and the same name ought to be kindled first in the heart nor yet that the matter of Fevers which they say doth proceed from one of the four humours being putrified consisteth in the bosomes of the heart therefore the heat or Fâver is not kindled at first in a Feverish matter and putrefaction is vainely enquired into that they may finde out the intimate and immediate cause of heat besides nature And by consequence the definition of a Fever from thence falls to the ground Yea it followes from thence that a Fever doth not primarily intimately and immediatly exist in its own matter from whence it is caused as they will have it materially and originally but in
oft-times seem presently to be eased and also to be cured yet cutting of a vein cannot but be disallowed seeing that Feverish persons are more successfully cured without the same For however at the first or repeated cuttings of a vein the cruelty of Fevers shall oft-times slacken Surely that doth no otherwise happen than because the Archeus much abhorreth a sudden emptying of the strength and an undue cooling and so neglects to expell the Feverish matter and to perform his office But they who seem to be cured by blood-letting surely they suffer a relapse at least they obtain a more lingering and less firm health which Assertion the Turks do prove and a great part of the world who with me are ignotant of the opening of a vein because it is that which God is no where read to have instituted or approved of yea not so much as to have made mention thereof But as to what belongs unto the first scope of a co-betokeming sign which is called Cooling Truly the letting out of the blood cooleth by no other title than as it filcheth from the vital heat But not that it obtains a coolifying and positive power In which respect at least such a cooling ought to be hurtful Why I pray in a Hectick Fever do they not open a vein Doth not that Fever want cooling or doth it cease to be a Fever But blood is wanting in Hecttick Fevers wherefore through defect of blood and strength there is an easie Judgement of hurt brought by Phlebotomy which otherwise the more strong faculties do cover In the year 1641. Novemb. 8. the body of Prince Ferdinand brother to the King of Spain and Cardinal of âoledo was dissected who being molested with a Tertian ague for 89 dayes dyed at 32. years of age For his heart liver and lungs being lifted up and so the veins and arteries being dissected scarce a spoonful of blood flowed into the hollow of his breast Indeed he shewed a liver plainly bloodless but a heart flaggy like a purse For but two dayes before his death he had eaten more if it had been granted unto him He was indeed by the cuttings of a vein purges and leeches so exhausted as I have said yet the Tertian ceased not to observe the order of its intention and remission What therefore hath so great an evacuation of blood profited or what hath that cooling plainly done unless that those evacuaters were vain which could not take away so much as a point of the Fevers Is that the method of healing which makes a Physitian whom the Almighty hath created and commanded to be honoured by reason of the necessity of him If that method knows not how to cure a Tertian ague in a young man to what end shall it conduce Is that the art whereof the infirm and unhealthy person stands in need I wish and wish again that that good Prince had not made use of it who when the returning from Cortracum was saluted by the Senate of Bruxells recovering from the agony of death by reason of the diminishments of his blood and strength then walked in good health about his Chamber Physitians therefore abhor to expose their feverish persons to the encountring of cold things to wit whereby they might presently and abundantly experience the vertue of cooling things by a manifest token because they put not much trust in their own rules of Heats and Coolers For since it is already manifest that the whole heat in a Fever is that of the very vital spirit it self it follows also that the cooling which is made by cutting of a vein is meerly that of the vital spirit and together also an exhausting of the blood and an impoverishment thereof For if a Fever be to be cured as a distemper by cutting of a vein as a cooling remedy Alas the contrary is manifest by the exhausting of all the blood out of the Prince the Infanto of Spain In whom as yet but the day before his death the Tertian Ague kept its fits âo great cooling not hindering it and if others intens a curing even in a Quotidian only by cold which they writ to be kindled of putrified Phlegm at leastwise that cooling should be far more easily obtained by exposing the sick half naked unto the blowing of the North or West wind or by hanging him up in water or a deep well until he should testifie that he were sufficiently cooled For so they should prefently and abundantly perfect a cure if their conscious ignorance did not within condemn their own feverish essence of heat Therefore a Fever is not a naked Tempest of heat but an occasional vitiated matter is present for the expelling whereof the Archeus being as it were wroth doth by accident inflame himself The which as long as it shall be neglected in the Schools the curings of Fevers will be rash destructive and conjâctural therefore none shall owe any thing worthy of giving thanks unto Physitians seeing they are cured by the voluntary goodness of nature and I wish they were not put back by Physitians But unto the argument of curing by sudden cold the Schools will answer that there is a perilous departure from one extream unto another By which excuse of their ignorance they stop the mouth of the people as if they spake something worthy of credit not taking notice that they therein contradict themselves while as they praise and prefer the cutting of a vein before laxative medicines chiefly for that end because it presently and abundantly succours by cooling and therefore they have given it the surname of a speedy and universal succour For they constrain their own impotency founded in ignorance unto the will of a Maxim badly understood and worse applied For truly it is not be doubted but that it is lawful presently to cut the halter of him that is hanged that he who was deprived of air may enjoy it as soon as may be Likewise that it is lawful presently to place him that is drowned in a steep scituation that he may cast back the water out of his lungs That it is lawful I say to draw any one presently to the bank and that it is lawful presently to free a wound from its indisposition and to close it with a scar For so very many wounds are closed in one only day because a solution of that which held together wants nothing besides a re-uniting of it self That it is lawful presently to repose a broken or diplaced bone Likewise that it is lawful in the Falling Sickness Swooning Fainting Cramp to recall the weak as soon as one can presently to loosen the detainments of excrements and presently to stop the excessive flux of womens issues For neither must we think that nature rejoyceth in her own destruction and that from an healthy state she indeed le ts in sudden death but refuseth a remedy which may suddenly repell a disease otherwise she should not do that which in things possible is most exceeding
its shop 28. From the impertinencie of the supposed position 29. From a convenient or agreeing thing 30. From the Gowt and wringings of the bowells 31. From an Erisepelas 32. From Causticks 33. From an Evangelical word 34. From a defect of the seperater 35. From the nourishing of the similar parts 36. From an impertinency 37. The deformity of a formed argument of the Schools 38. From a like thing 39. From the nature of an Element 40. From the simplicity of its end 41. A denyal of a position 42. From a Phylosophical maxim 43. From tast and properties 44. Who was the inventer of humours 45. What a diversity of Soiles may argue 46. From the blood of an Aethiopian 47. Whence the venal blood is the more red in its superficies 48. From a like thing 49. Whence there is a change of colours in things 50. From a shew of the deed in many things 51. The childish in inspection of the Schools of out-issuing blood 52. Miserable impostures 53. A ridiculous omission of the Schools 54. The judgment of Physitians fights against it self 55. Privy shifts sliding from unvoluntary cheeks 56. A cruel or hurtfull little book concerning the nature of man 57. From effects and fear 58. From the confession of Physitians 59. Dunghill Physitians distinguish not men but by dungs 60. A ridiculous argument of the Schooles 61. An argument on the contrary from a maxim of naturall Phylosophy 62. A convincing argument 63. Galen ridiculous about the cause of the variety of humours 64. The perplexities of Galen 65. Refutations by the Beginnings of natural Phylosophy 66. An errour of Paracelsus 67. The Schools are ignorant of the venal blood 68. An argument against the position 69. A false and ridiculous supposition of the Schools concerning the supplying office of the Spleen 70. Absurdities 71. A handicraft demonstration 72. Against the position concerning black Choler 73. Many absurdities follow 74. The Schools do most miserably prove their position for black choler 75. Some defects following thereupon 76. A convincing argument 77. An Idiotisme of Paracelsus 78. Sharpnesse doth not ferment Earth 79. From an impertinency 80. A convincing argument 81. From an impossibility 82. A ridiculous supposition of the Schools and four absurdities thereof 83. Some absurdities accompanying the opinion concerning the hony of Galen 84. From things implying 85. By a convincing argument from the supposition of a falshood concerning the Elements 86. From a number of the Elements 87 A bruitish objection 88. If we must not proceed by humours how therefore must we cure 89. The praise of the valatile salt of Tartar I Have sent forth an unheard of Doctrine of Fevers that I might hear what the more fruitful wits might teach me For there were some who had promised that they would be arbitrators or judges in the Case whom notwithstanding I conjecture so long to be silent untill I had set forth a treatise of humours which I had promised to gather out of my great works For truly they could not be ignorant that if I could sufficiently demonstrate that the humours accustomed in the Schools besides blood were never or never to be in nature they also were to have no contention with me concerning Fevers And that thing I now promise ingeniously to performe not indeed as that I may be glorious by the name of a Paradox but altogether from compassion towards young beginners that are badly instructed and toward the sick that are badly handled under the device of humours Therefore I will state the forme of the matter For indeed the Chyle or juice of the stomach being supt up into the veines of the mesentery they affirme the same chyle to be conveighed unto the Port-vein of the Liver to wit a trunk arising out of the small branches distributed through the mesentery into the intestines or bowels And that that Chyle in the time of its passage through the slender trunks of the veins extended into the liver is by the power of the Liver converted into blood and also into phlegm and a twofold choler And that this choler is afterwards seperated partly into the spleen and partly into the litle bag of the gawl To wit that they may be the keepers of both their own superfluous choler but that the two natural Cholers as the entire and constitutive parts of the blood are co-mingled together with the blood for the necessities of the parts to be nourished in the due proportion of the quaternary of which humours that as health doth consist So on the other hand that in an undue proportion thereof all diseases are entertained But that an undue proportion thereof proceedeth as well from the perpetual strife and hostile and unwearied contrariety of the four repugnant Elements as from the voluntary distemperature and inbred fight stirred up of things received into the body Truly I have already in the Beginnings of natural Phylosophy and rise of medicine sufficiently removed the foregoing cause of so great a fiction To wit where I have sufficiently demonstrated that there are not four Elements in nature and by consequence if there are only three that four cannot go together or encounter Therefore that the squadron being broken cannot cause four unlike Elementary combates temperatures mixtures contrarieties hatreds strifes c. For I have taught cleerly enough that the fruites which antiquity hath believed to be mixt bodies and those composed from a concurrence of four Elements are materially of one onely Element In the next place also that those three Elements are naturally cold nor that native heat is any where in things except from light life motion and an altering Blas And so that heat in the Elements is a meer Relolleum In like manner also that all actual moisture is of water but all virtual moisture from the property of the seeds Likewise that drynesse is by it self in the aire and earth But in fruites by reason of the seeds and coagulations Therefore that it is a false doctrine which is celebrated concerning the Elements mixtures qualities temperaments discords degrees in order unto diseases and the curings of these I have also profesly demonstrated that there are not contraries in nature That health is opposed to a disease with relation of that which is entire unto that which is defectuous To wit that remedies do take away a disease not by the force of contrariety as neither by reason of a naked similtude or likenesse but by reason of a meer gift of goodnesse restoring nature by helping her the which otherwise is the Physitiannesse of her own self These things surely were sufficient and might be able to take humours out of the way unlesse an opposite custome had as it were tied up the mind least it should hasten unto the knowledge of the truth For it is a very difficult thing to disaccustome those who are confident in themselves that by those humours they have long since compendiously viewed every catalogue of a disease Wherefore unto those that
in separating And so seeing both Cholers accuse of a necessary access in a just temperament as they call it these could never be made fit for nourishment Since moreover we are daily nourished by the same things whereof we consist to wit of a temperate and lively seed refusing both Cholers And there shall be the like reason for both Cholers which there is of Phlegm That if this be perfected into the blood within the veins Choler shall no less be made blood in the Arteries For if Phlegm be changed into blood out of a natural proper and requisite shop much more shall yellow Choller be fit that in the heart it may degenerate into the more yellow blood of the Artery and into the spirit of life and the heart shall be the restorative shop of a gawly excrement But alas how miserable an Argument is it while as the blood let out of the veins disposeth it self to corruption sometimes two three or more liquors are seen therefore there are as many constitutive Humours of us For blood is wholly changed into milk and then after its corruption it hath only three subordinate parts to wit Whey Cheese and Butter nor ever more For sometimes it is totally coagulated in the Dug into a hard swelling in the form of Cheese now and then it wholly passeth over into a white yellow somewhat green c. corrupt Pus Sometimes into a pricking gnawing watery liquor as in the Disease called Choler Ulcers c. Elsewhere also it totally departs into a salt Wheyish liquor as in the Dropsie and many Hydragogal or water-extracting Medicines Oft-times also it waxeth wholly black like pitch as in blood that is chased out of the veins in a Gangreen c. but frequently into an ashie and stinking clay of slime as in Fluxes At another time also it wholly passing over into a yellow poyson shews or spreads forth the Jaundise in which manner also it boasts it self in those that are bitten with a Serpent Elsewhere also the blood is without the separation of an Heterogeneal matter wholly changed into sores issuing forth matter like honey called Melicerides into swellings of the Neck or Arm-holes conteining a matter in them like Pulse c. And in the Pâssing-Evil the blood is totally changed into a milky liquor Even as under a Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs it wholly passeth into a yellowish spittle Are therefore perhaps as many Humours to be constituted in the blood as there are beheld degenerations thereof And shall there be as many Liquors in Rain-water as there are things growing out of the Earth For the blood is in us like unto water neither had it need of divers seeds in the Liver that it may be one only equally nourishable Humour But in the last Kitchins it attaineth its own requisite diversities whereby it performeth the office of nourishing And so it should in its beginning in vain exceed in divers seeds and diversities of kind the which at length ought totally to be Homogeneally reduced into one only glewie white and transparent nourishable Sperm or Seed for the support of the similar parts or to remain red for the flesh of the Muscles and substance of the bowels Wherefore I stedfastly deny That the blood as long as it liveth or is detained in the veins although after the death of a man is coagulated and by consequence that it bath integral unlike parts with any Heterogeniety of it self But that all diversity in the blood is made only by the death or destruction of the same Therefore the diversity of Humours is the daughter only of death but not of life Neither is that of concernment that Excrements do now and then occur in the body which dissemble the countenance of blood To wit from whence they are made by degeneration For Urine is no longer wine even as neither are corrupt Pus or Snivel or spittles as yet parts of the blood Because Excrements are no longer that which they were before their corruption Because every thing assumes its Essence and name from the bound of transmutation For what doth it prove if blood by Phlebotomy separates water or other soils in time of its corruption if the same water be thereupon neither Gaul nor Choler nor bitter and wants the properties of Gaul Or what a rash belief is that Water swims on dead blood Therefore it it is gauly Choler which under a false taste dissembles the bitterness of Choler For that Water swimming on the blood is not an entire part thereof nor of its Essence or Contents or more near akin to the Blood than a Chariot in respect of a man sitting therein It is therefore to be grieved at that for so many ages none hath ever tasted down that water but that they all have engraven their names on the trifles of their Ancestors that I say under a shew of healing the Schools have delivered the destructions of the sick under false Principles For truly Humours are destructive Ignorances sluggishnesses and shamefulnesses introduced by the Father of lies and celebrated by the loose credulity of his followers For although the bottom of the blood doth sometimes look the less red it shall not therefore be black Choler Even as neither is the sediment of the Urine Phlegm But while the life of the blood departed it s no wonder if all particular things which were kept in the unity of life do re-take the material conditions whereto they are obliged For the variety of soils in liquid bodies depends on a preheminency of weights Because they have a latitude in weight which after death become Heterogeneal or of a different hind and by degrees do hasten into a disorder of confusion For will a man that is of a sound judgement believe that Wine Ale and the juyces of herbs do lay aside their own black Choler at the bottom together with their sediment For what hath black Choler common with the heterogeneal substance of a sediment But as to the Colour every Aethiopian hath his Blood almost black but for the most part without whey yet none of them is Melancholy but all wrathful For the blood which by the encompassing air is presently cooled in the Basin waxeth more red than that which being sunk unto the bottom hath the longer continued lukewarm For this also is ordinary that any blood being chased out of the veins presently waxeth black in the body For whatsoever things do readily putrifie do easily admit of the companions of putrefaction and that part of blood doth sooner putrifie which hath the longer continued warm after its death Therefore neither is it a wonder that the part of the lower ground thereof becomes more intensly black But that black blood is not a separation of weight in the Blood and much less black Choler I have separated nine ounces of fresh Blood and that as yet liquide into Porâingers One whereof I exposed to swim in cold water but the other part being equal to the former
incorporeal Gas which is therefore straightway comixable with our Archeus Therefore that Gas refresheth those that are affected in their womb with its smell but not the oyl not the tincture milk or floure of Sulphur But after what sort thou mayest know that Gas of Sulphur to be distinct from the watery vapour thereof kindle a sulphurated torch or candle in a glass bottle thou shalt forthwith see the whole bottle to be filled with a white fume and at length the flame to be stifled by the fume Afterwards keep thou the bottle most exactly stopt with a cork and thou shalt see a sulphur to be affixed unto the sides of the vessel and in the superficies of the water if there were any in the bottom But if indeed after some daies thou shalt put the same enflamed torch or bottle into the neck of the candle the flame is forthwith extinguished by reason of the condensable Gas of the Sulphur no otherwise than as the odour of an Hogshead putrified through continuance stifles the flame of a sulphurated candle But Hippocrates perfumed all the wine which he gave in the plague after this manner He perfumed the pot or cup of a narrow neck with a candle of burning sulphur he powred in wine to the filling of the pot a third part full and stirred the pot being exactly shut by shaking it a good while together upwards and downwards until the wine had drunk up all the Gas of the sulphur into it self For medicines to be hung on the body and Amulets or preservative Pomanders had not yet been made known But he supplyed external medicines that take away weariness or faintness in the room thereof by anointing the body with Greek Wine wherein he had boiled the most fine powder of Sulphur But he besprinkled the same fine powder being dryed in the Sun on those that were in a sweat and commanded it to be applyed with rubbings But the Pest since it never wants a Fever and that the Grecans saw the remedies of Hippocrates they began first to call the Pest and then every Fever ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or a fire Not indeed by reason of a remarkable and necessary burning heat of Fevers although it so pleased Galen For truly they called the beginning cold rigours and horrours Pyâ or a fire as well as a burning Causon For Hippâcrates lightly ground Sulphur with water on a Grind-stone and being again dried he kept it for his uses But he gave twenty four grains of Sulphur with salted and hot wine that he might provoke sweats But he first made the salt to crack in a glassen pot and presently afterwards he melted it by increasing the fire for else salt containeth in it excrementitious filths which at the first cracking fly away the salt cleaving asunder and leaping a little These Spirits do easily putrifie through continuance and subject the salt to a fear of contagion for they are very forraign to the salt the which although they fled away a good while before the fusion of the salt yet he made a melting of the salt that whatsoever forreign thing was contained in the salt might be consumed by the fire For indeed he saw that presently after the invasion of the Pest the appetite was prostrated and then also that fermentally putrified and burntish impurities grew in the stomach from whence arose the headach vomitings loathings doatage the drowsie evil c. which would hinder the cure of the plague Therefore he took the common balsam of the salt of fleshes which might overthrow the fermental putrified poyson and putrefactions by cleansing them away together with a conâââing of the strength and he gave the wine being salted hot but not luke-warm ãâ¦ã restrain the loathings of the stomach and mightily provoke sweats and ãâã ãâã Sulphur that it might kill the plague as it were with its odour because salt cleanâââh preserveth from corruption and Sulphur restrains poyson But he prescribed this sweat for three daies space at least yet oft-times he extended it unto a weeks space but they did sweat twice every day and at every turâ for the sixth part of a day if they were able on the first daies more and on the after succeeding daies less For in time of sweating he took away all drink but the term of sweating being finished he fed them with Barley-Cream and for drink they had Greek Wine pitcht wherein were a few grains of the aforesaid salt and Sulphur But he laid the leaves of Assara Bacca being steeped in vinegar upon the Bubo unto the soals of the feet and palms of the hands which after every twelve hours he commanded to be buried because they stink greatly It came to pass afterwards that Greece be sprinkled their grapes divers times with the Brine of the Sea before they were carried to the Press For Hippocrates perswaded that thing that so together with it Inâects might be driven from the grapes Hence it is that the Wines of Greece are salted even unto this day the reason of this use being unknown Unto great Buboes in the groyn and marks he applyed hot Towels tinged in rich wine wherein as I have said he had boiled Sulphur Furthermore he reserved a secret to himself through the sight whereof he attained to himself divine honours But it was the flesh of a Viper or or Snake which he cleansed for the utmost part of the tail and the head being cut off he stript off their skin casting away the bowels together with the gawl he reserved only the Heart and Liver but he drew out all their blood with the vein running down the back-bone But he boiled not their flesh after the manner wherein it is put into Triacle but he exactly bruised the same together with the bones and aforesaid bowels and dryed them in a warm Oven until they could be powdered which powder he sprinkled on hony being sufficiently clarified and boiled until he knew that fleshes in boiling had laid aside their virtue as well in the broath as in the vapours But he added unto this Electuary the Spice of his Country for to cloak the secret and therefore neither was it made manifest by the Angel But the cure contains a mystery that as Death crept in by the Serpent it self also ought to be vindicated by the death of the Serpent For Adam being skilful in the properties of all Beasts was not ignorant also that the Serpent was more crafty than the other living Creatures and that the aforesaid balsam the remedy of death lay hid in the Serpent Wherefore the Spirit of Darkness could not more safely deceive our first parents than under the Serpents skin For perhaps they hoped that they should escape the death sorely threatned by God by the aid of the Serpent Hippocrates used also wine that was pitched Wherefore it is worthy our consideration that Spain is seldom afflicted with the plague not because sins or filths are wanting where there are almost no Jakes's It s a
divert himself But that the Archeus being terrified and a run-away and returning as half in a rage is made so hostile unto the parts his Clients over which he alone is president the confirmation thereof is not elsewhere to be fetched than that a thorn is thrust into the finger which by the fat or grease of an Haâe is safely expelled without discommodities as that remedy asswageth the fury of the Archeus which thorn doth otherwise stir up a great Tragedy of fury For the Archeus brings forth a poyson in his Clients by his own fury the which otherwise a simple small wound would willingly be ignorant of Conceive thou how unlike is the wound of phlebotomy and the sting of a Bee And likewise the stroak of phlebotomy that is clean how far doth it differ from the prick of unclean phlebotomy It s no wonder therefore that the seat where the image of the conceived terrour and piercing of the combined image of fury shall first happen is hostilely disturbed is furiously scorched yet oftentimes poysonous tempests are transmitted and chased unto the more outward habit of the body by the implanted spirit of life unto places I say whither the Latex or liquor of the veins tendeth of its own free accord in time of health or they are dismissed unto the external habit of the body And therefore whatsoever is to be done in the Pest that is to be cured with speed For sometimes the image of the Pest is cloathed only with the inflowing spirit and then medicines that provoke sweat do readily succour But where the inhering and in-bred Archeus conceiveth the image of his terrour and fury in the solid parts unless he presently resign up and lay aside the conceived image unto and in the spermatick nourishment I have called that corrupt nourishment the Tartar of the blood and produce a tumour there is danger least it presently pass over into the very substance of the solid parts which contains an unexcusable detriment of death And therefore that the plague may not take up for it self a tough Inn within the body we must procure that the pestilent image do not long float within but that the whole houshold-stuff be allured forth and fall out by sweat For the Carline Thistle is said to have been in times past shewn unto an Emperour by an Angel for the plague of his Army perhaps therefore called Angel-Thistle because the first rise of the image of the Pest stirs up drowsie evils loathings a Fever vomiting and head-aches about the stomach but the herb Ixia or Chamilion drives away sleep and much more deep drowsinesses against Nature and therefore they hope that the extraction of fresh Carline Thistle should not be unfruitful for the plague that is newly begun The End A TABLE Of many of the Chief things contained in this Book The rest being referred to the Contents of the CHAPTERS A. WHat Accidents properly are to what serving c. 131 9. c. Acheldamah consumes a dâad carcasse in one day 671. 54. Adam not cursed 654. A demonstration of his fall 659. What he generated after sin 663. 17. Why he and his posterity Bearded 666. Adam's lust arose from a natural property of the apple 668. No motion of lust in Adam before his fall 682. 85. Of Adam's understanding 711. The Praise of Agnus Castus 707. 52. What kind of knowledge in the apple 665. Air not reducible into water 60. 12 76 41. Air the reducer of bodies into water 68. 26. Air the seperater of the waters 71. 4 152 19. Air is exceeding cold and dry Ibid. 76. 40. 1120. Air acts on the water without a reaction 76. 41. A vacuity in the air proved by a manual 82. 4 7 1126. It s magnal or sheath 85. 20 692 12. It is imprinted with the seal of formes c. 133 18. c. What office it bears in minerals Ibid. 20. How it joyns to the vital spirit 183. 37. Air seperates sulphurs 184. 45. It Volaâizeth the blood 186. 187 56. Air not capable of a vital light 189. It doth not nourish the vital spirit 190. 9. How the Alkahest of Paracelsus operates on bodies 65 7 105 6 104 27 479 43 787. it is compared to the fire mentioned in Macchabes 108. 28. It s operation on a Coal Ibid. It s Aenigmatical description 115 28. The Revealer of the proportion of light c. 146. 89. The operation of the liquor Alkahest one the Cedar 811. Aloes hurt by washing 463. 39. Alcalies reduced into a meer simple water 106. 12. How alcalies are made 183. 38. The Common-wealth of Alcalies 184. 40. Alcalies why fit for wound drinkes 186. 53 294 21. Amber drawes the virtue from vitriol without touching it 764. 22. Amber becomes a Zenexton against the Plague 767. 37 787 1146. Amulets act by influence 330 19. 481 An Amulet against the Plague 767. 37. Antimony in its form better than in its principles 788. 153 Antimony observes an Influence 773. 63. How a sweet Anodine workes 918. No Animal spirit in nature 187. 58. A good Angel never appears Bearded 661. 37. Anasarcha by what produced 513. It s cure 521. The Apoplexy hitherto unknown 906 998 Its rise 917 Its seat 915 Apple takes away warts 154 Apostemes how made 186. 52 290 6 Aqua Fortis c. 96. 14 Aqua Vitae see spirit of wine  How Arcanum's do operate 473. 15 164 15 Arcanum'â cure all Diseases 524 Arcanum's never go into nourishment 577 Arcanum's iâ some sort exceed the powers of nature 753 Arsenick though never so well preparââ is not to be inwardly administred 466. 52. It is fixed by co-melting with salt-peter 105. 10 The Arterial spirit of life is of the nature of a Gas. 110. 40 Arterial blood exhales without a Capât mortuum 182. 34 By what 185. 40 How an Arterie becomes hard 185. 48 The Arteries do not atract air 190 Arteries attract spirit of wine but no juicy things 203. 41 The Archeus its constitutive parts 35. 4  110 41 Its seat 430 287 28 What it is in the beginning of Generation 133  18 142 60 The manner of its operating 142 61 c. Its defects 549 Archeus sensible of death 553 Archeus receiving of evils the cause of our hurt 1127 Archeus hath an imaginâtion of its own differing from the mind 1128 Aroph of Paracelsus 709. 53 878 879 Aristotles four constitutive causes of things condemned 18. 3 Astrology natural why preferred before the stellar astrology 26. 9 Its supports or props vain 126. 46 c. Condemned by an experiment 127. 48 By a review of the attributes they give to the Planets Ibid. 50 Astronomy slighted 12. 5 Ascites what 508. 524 Asarum by boyling lays down its vomitive force 172. 45 The difference of Ascarides from worms 221  83 Its cure Ibid. Asthmawhat 260. 40 356 What the Asthma consists of 360. 27 Froâ whence the Ashma ariseth 261. 42 â twofold Asthma 357. 9 358. 368. 68 The Asthma is
a falling sicknesse of the lungs 361. 29 368. Common Remedies for the Asthma vain 3623637. The seat of the Asthma in the Duumvirate 361. 28 The Asthma not cured but by an Arcanuââ 362. 40 A moist Asthma from Endemical things drawn in 363. 45 The reasons of the Schools concerning the Asthma rejected 364 53 The grounds thereof 365 366 367 58 A dry Asthma is the Falling-sickness of the Lungs 368. 60 Remedies for Coughs vain in the dry Asthma ibid. VVhat remedies are fit for both kind of Asthma's ibid. 370 68 The âume of Sulphur profitable in drinks for the Asthma 372 77 The Authours intent to have burnt this book 10. 13 His breeding 11. 1078 He Read about 600 Physical Authors 13. 15 How stird up to be a Physitian 14. 20 The way he took to attain knowledg 22. 43 Why he brake down the old received doctrines 37. 3 433 18. His persecution 470. 2 His dream Ibid. 3. 1073 His challenge 526 The Authors observations on his stomach being loaded 123. 41. His visions 265. 13 716 His vision of generation 736 His medicines never Exhausted though he cured thousands yearly 1080 What happened to the Author upon the rasting of Wolfsbane 274. 12 The Author understood wholly in his heart but not at all in his head 275. 13 The Authors search into the cause of Madnesses 277. 25 The Authors diââinctions of the office of a Physitian and a Chyrurgion 1080 How the Author was hurt with the smoak of Char-coale 300. 20 How two of the Authors sons died of the Plague 1135 Of the search of the Author after the Tree of life 808. Of his dream 810 How the Author cured himself of a Pleuriâie 399. 35 400 B. BAlsams c. made with hony 467. 56 Barrenness from what 630 The Beard bred from the stones 333 38 334 41 335 47. Concerning Bezoar 991 The great vertue of its milkie juice 992 Beâs generated from a strangled calf and dew 478. 1026 65 Of the virtues of the Birch tree 892 The Blas of the heart the fewel of the vitaâ spirit 180 Blas of Government hitherto unknown 330. 19 20 21 22. The Binsica of the Rabbins 24. 51. The Blas of man voluntary 177. Blas twofold Ibid. What Blas is 78. 1. Defluxions of the Bladder Ridiculus 856 The venal blood exhales without any dead head 404. 21 112 5 182 34. It s salt made by a mumial ferment 473. 19. What operation precedes blood-making 479. 49. How it nourisheth 112. 4. Out-chased blood the occasional cause of the dropsie 517. Blood never putrifies in the veins 941. Blood-making not hindred in the dropsie 517. Blood of the hemeroyds not putrified 943. Blood of a Bull why poysonable 174 49 783. 19. Of the difference between Arterial and venal blood 179. The spirit of the blood not in the liver 181. 32. The Arterial blood exhales without any Caput mortuum 182. 34. By what 185. 40. The making of venal and Arterial blood are different 732 In what time the Bloud of man is renewed 640 The best part of the Bloud the Schools calâ Phlegm 1050 23 An eâstatial power in the Bloud 777 75 Bloudy Flux cured by Horse-hoof fried 334 41 Of things cast into the Body 597 With the manner thereof 604 Of things breathed into the Body 617 A solid Bâdy not changed into another Body without reducement into its first matter 241 6 Bones broken cured by Comfry 457 5â 461 26 Of the Stone for broken bones 564 Bone of the Head profitable against the Falling-sickness 770 51 The Emunctories of the Brain 435 13 The defects of the Brain âise from the Midriff 276 19 Of Bread 451 14 White Briony resolves congealed bloud and profits in the Dropsie 519 Butler 557 His wonderful Stone 558 Butler cured the Plague 1149 And by what 1151 Buboes and Glandules terminated by sweat 1104 Burial of Malefactors why nâcessary 1134 Why slain Souldiers ought to be buried deeper than usually they are 1135 C. IN what respect Camphor is said to cool 471 4 The Cabal first manifest in sleep 781 98 99 What each mans Calling properly is 124 36 A new Catheter 886 Of the operation of Cantharides in thâ living and the dead 480 60 The original of a Cancer 544. its progress and Cure 545. 546. 158 A Canker in the Stomach cured by a fragrant Emplaister 115 22 A Cancer curable by a reduced Frog 141 Â 56 c. Of a Country mans curing the Cancer 546 Catarrhs or rheums proved ridiculous 429 430. c. Cauteries what 380. 1 The promises of a Cautery childish 381. 6 Nine conclusions against the appointment of Cauteries 382 10 A Cautery prevents not a Catarrhe 384 Â 14 The benefit of Cauteries accidental 384 20 Whom a Cautery may profit 383 28 29 Causticks act not on the dead as on the living 499 170 No nutriment from Clysters 479 49 Cliââers unprofitable 969 The prayse due to Chastity 682 Why Cheese loathsom to many 115 25 Chewing food well necessary 4â3 â1 Child-birth hastened by a Potion 127 49 Black Choler according to Hippocrates subsisting in the Midriff if dispersed thorow the Body begetteth the Falling-Evil if into the Soul madnesses 29â 15 What the Choler of the Schools is 454 22 How it is made 1045 Choler wholly an Excrement 1048 16 The bitterness of the mouth not from Choler 1060 The Seat of Choler not be found 1053 No Choler in Nature 1054 The Incarnation of Christ not according to the order of Nature 665 Chymistry commended 462 32 It creates things which not before were c. Â 477. 36 486 What one of its chiefest endeavours is 115. 17 It prepares a universal Dissolver 482 Chymical Medicines adulterated by the cavetous 990 The degrees of Chymical heat 202 35 Of that Cinnabar whereof half an ounce Impregnates a Barrel of Wine 578 Whence the yellowish Spittle of Consumptive Persons proceeds 440 39 What a Consumption is 449 63 The remedies thereof 441. 43 Of diseasie Conceptions 608 Thirteen conclusions from fire pepper and causticks proved by Handicraft-operation 500 The power of Cold as to reduction of Bodies into water 108 29 109 38 Coughs whence 430 5 259 â3 Purging in Coughs condemned 431 9 No true Remedies found for Coughs 260 Â 37 Pose the fore-runner of a Cough 569 67 Remedies for a Cough the same with a Pleurisiâ 570 68 Concerning Coral 991 719 The virtue of its Tincture 605 Coral by what it changeth its colour and is restored by 1143 Coraline Secret what 390 25 805 Its preparation Ibid Crabs Eyes 991 Their milkie juyce 992 Observations on Crabs 886 Their virtues in wounded persons 294 295 The ashes of burnt Crabs against the madness occasioned by a Dog 297 15 Cramps cured by mans fat 480 58 What the Crasis of a thing is 415 82 The right way of curing 473 14 D. THe virtues of Daucus 837 Of desperate Diseases 307 53 A description of desire 270 Contemplation of Diseases 530 Difference between death and
of their own forms For from whence had they drawn their own contrariety whose matter and form indeed the total principles of accidents do repulse all contrariety far from them especially because accidents being considered in themselves are not so much Beings as of Beings and so that of themselves they are nothing do work or prevail nothing Therefore it must needs be that if there be any intention of contrariety in nature that is primarily in the active Principle that is in the bosom of the forms So that even in this respect forms themselves the which notwithstanding without controversie they have banished into the number of substances should be actually and potentially contrary by a primitive right Consequently also the Maxim of the Schools is false That nothing is contrary to substances or it behoveth accidents to have the same contrariety not depending on forms and from their own proper nature without and against the possibility of forms That is not to be the immediate means products and instruments of forms but to arise stand persevere and act of themselves even against the will of forms without and besides forms To be I say independent Beings and no longer of Beings Or Thirdly At length they must confesse with me That there is no contrariety in nature except among free and elective Agents I adde If the equality of contraries subsisteth according to the aforesaid Maxim it must needs be that the relation of a relation to be founded between contraries depends on a substantial root or on a radical respect of contrarieties and an intimate suitableness of proportion most fully present which is as much as to say That the essence of the relation of contrarieties to be founded otherwise more former than the existence it selfe of forms can be is altogether seated in the most full or innermost substantial principle of forms it self wholly uncapable of contrariety And that whether thou dost respect God himself or any other created substance and so it must needs be That contrariety in nature doth include a contradiction in its own Beginnings and those of Phylosophy But if thou considerest these things even as supernaturally and in God they are not also therefore made contrary and so neither shall they flow from God into nature as contraries And this very thing I say I also urge further If one contrary may be declared so many wayes as oft as also another Neither is there any thing contrary to substanstial forms therefore there is also no friendship co-resemblance or likenesse between forms which is false For truly from hence doth appear a Character of things not to be blotted out because all things were created by God the Lover of Peace For after that I submitted my self to be instructed by better Beginnings I seriously knew for certainty whether I should behold substances or at length accidents that there is no contrariety in nature unless among angryable or wrathful Beings and moveable living creatures So far is it that the action of every Agent on its Patient should onely proceed from the term of relation of a contrary unto its contrary Therefore I have found contrariety only in the wrathful power of Sensitive creatures and not else-where Whence perhaps by an improper metaphor or hyperbole or excessiveness contrariety hath been also wrested unto all individuals of the world Whether the Schooles feeling a proper animosity of disputing have also meditated that the other products of Seeds also are in like manner stirred up only by anger to wit by the action of the greater to the lesse of the Conqueror to the thing conquered and of the stronger to the weaker by Reason of the Relations of Contrariety Therefore the sense of that Negative Maxim wherein it is said That nothing is contrary to substances is equivalent to the Position fore-placed in the Title of this Chapter to wit That nature is ignorant of or knows no contraries If there should be any power of contrariety in nature except in the wrathful faculty of sensitive creatures for of Terms and applyed Relations of Logick I do not speak surely that should be in the manifest and primary qualities of the Elements but in these there is no contrariety therefore in no place elsewhere The Assumption is proved for that the Schools do draw the first qualities in mixt bodyes from the very contrarieties of the composing Elements But the Subsumption I have proved elsewhere here to be repeated A young man in the morning descending from the Alpes which are covered with continuall Snow yet on the side respecting the Sun his whole neck was burnt into Bubbles or Bladders And there the aire is exceeding delightfull and poured all abroad as it were with a new sky Learn thou thence in the mean time first of all That Cold is not a privative absence of Heat but a true Being Therefore Cold and Heat being there heightned at once in the same place time and subject of the aire do mutually suffer each other which thing the Schools will not admit to be possible in contraries for truly they are such things which they will have mutually to beat down break expell slay each other and to bring to a middle and neutral state We must note here by the way that in the same place the heightned cold is entertained immediately in the aire but the heightned and bladdering heat to be there in respect of the Light and so immediately in the place it selfe of the aire but mediately in the aire But seeing that place doth pierce the aire throughout its whole substance and the enlightned place doth heat also the aire it self which therefore the light doth at once pierce therefore in the same point of the aire there is a heightned heat together with heightned cold The knitting of both which brings forth an acceptable and friendly luke-warmth to the sense yet a mocking one because the effect of both qualities being knit together bewrayeth a great heightning or degree under that luke-warmth And therefore neither is luke-warmth caused as both qualities being equally heightned do dash or batter each other through the fight of contrariety and reduce each other into a middle and plausible mediocrity but the Senses and Schools which according to sensualities suffer themselves to slide every where without a more inward narrow search are too improper and rusticall Judges of natural things Likewise hot water being powred into cold of a like proportion although they do presently stir up a luke-warmth in the thing co-mixt Yet both qualities in a heightned degree are in that luke-warmth no otherwise than as in the aforesaid aire of the Alpes although the sense doth not distinguish them For otherwise it is not possible that that heat of the water gotten by the moment of degrees should perish in an instant yea neither is it the fight of contraries which hath presently generated that luke-warmth as neither the victory of cold excelling the heat while the former heat is slackned but the heat in the