contrary namely Unite the Four Humours in the Veins though different in nature instead of segregating them for in this Case Heat acts not with full authority but as the Soul's Officer following her intentions And the reason is because these four Humours being ingredients into the Nativity of Man they must necessarily pass into his nourishment which they cannot do without being mingled together But when the Blood is out of the Veins then the Heat disengag'd from the Soul's jurisdiction disgregates and separates all four making the Choler float uppermost the Phlegm next then the Blood and lowest of all Melancholy as the dregs Amongst Souls there is the same order of Superiority The Sensitive makes the Vegetative obey it as appears by this that if after meat the Imagination attend much to an object the Concoction of the Food is retarded because all the Faculties of the Soul being united in their Root and Essence of the Soul when she sets her self much upon one object she leaves the other inferiour powers idle they not being able to work but as the Soul their principle employs them Now this premis'd I say when a breeding Woman hath a longing for any thing this desir'd thing is imprinted strongly in the Phancy and this imprinting being made in the Brain the Spirits which flow from thence carry a copy thereof with them For as an intire Looking-glass represents but one Image but every piece of a broaken one hath its whole Pourtrait because the Intentional Species or Images of things though divisible by reason of their subject are yet in themselves formally indivisible being Forms without Matter and consequently indivisible Division proceeding from Quantity a concomitant of Matter So those Spirits which stream from the Brain though they leave there the image of the desir'd thing yet withall they carry the same image with them as being portions of the substance wherein it is engraven and running to the place where the Foetus is form'd by reason of the union of its Umbilical Vessels with those of the Mother they arrive at the Infant and imprint the Characters they bring upon it the Vegetative and Plastick or Formative Vertue suffering it self to be over-rul'd by the Sensitive as this is by the Imaginative and this again by the other superiour powers When the teeming Woman touching her self in any part the Spirits run thither from the Brain either by reason of the touch or the motion both depending upon the Animal Spirits but finding the Mother's flesh too hard and disproportinate to their effect and missing their blow they go to give it upon the tenderer flesh of the Child And as in Generation the Spirits of all the parts of the Body accur to the place where the Seed is receiv'd there to engrave the Characters of the parts whence they flow which afterwards serve for the Formative Vertue every one having his task to make the part from which it issu'd so the Mother's Spirits keep the same course and rule towards the Embryo so that those which serv'd to the Mother's touch go to find that same place in the Child's Body there to mark the Image which they brought from the Brain Nature finding ways for her Intention where none appear The Second said The impotence of that Sex and their weakness of Mind evidenc'd by the violence of all their Passions which know no mediocrity is one of the principal causes of the impetuosity of their desires Now the Species of the thing desir'd being in the Imagination it excites the Appetite which desir'd it this the motive Faculty which employs the Animal Spirits to execute the commands of the Faculties by whom it is set on work And as the Vertues and Images of things generated here below by the heat and influence of the Stars are receiv'd in the Air which consigns them to the Earth so those Spirits receive the Species and Images whereof the brain is full and being directed by the Imagination to the Womb which hath great communication with the Brain by means of the nerves of the sixt Pair as appears by the effects of Odors upon that part there they retrace and imprint upon the Child the Images wherewith they are laden For if it be true that the Imagination can act beyond its Subject as Estriches and Tortoises are said to hatch their Eggs with their Eyes and that Hens hatch Chickens of the colour of such cloths as are laid before them whilest they are sitting much more may the Imagination of a Woman represent upon the tender Fruit in her womb the Images of things which she passionately desires and this is no more strange than the common observation of People falling sick and recovering again meerly by Fancy The Third said That the images of things desired are in the Spirits just as those of sensible objects are in the Air which is full of them But as these that they may be seen must be terminated by a smooth and opake body so that those which are in the spirits may be express'd they must be terminated by a soft tender and capable body as a child's is in the first months of his conformation during which alone he is susceptible of these impressions which are only of things edible and potable being the Child then endu'd only with sensitive Life cannot be affected but by things serving to the Animal Life as aliments are which besides are ordinarily and most ardently desir'd by breeding Women those that long for chalk coals and other impurities being unhealthy and distemper'd Now to give account why the Grapes Mulberries Strawberries Goose-berries and other Fruits delineated upon our bodies ripen and change colour at the same time as the true fruits upon the earth do I shall not recurr to the Stars or Talismanical Figures but more probably to that Universal Spirit which causeth the same fermentation in the spirits of our bodies as in Wine and the Vine when it is in its sap and flower and in Pork or Venison when Hogs and Deer are salt mezled or go to rut The fourth said That some of these Marks adhere to particular Families So the family of Seleucus had an Anchor upon the thigh in Greece some were distinguish'd by a Lance a Crevish a Star c. which marks as Warts and Moles proceed from the Formative Vertue in the seed which containing the Idea of all the parts expresses them to the life in the child Other sorts of Marks are not ordinary but fortuitous and depend upon the Imagination alone which employs the spirits which are common both to the Mother and Child by the Umbilical Vessels and have the same motions so that when the Woman scratches her self in any part of her body the spirits having a like motion are carri'd towards that part and at the same time towards that correspondent part in the child's body whose tenderness is alone susceptible of the image wherewith they are impregnated and which is never to be removed as being from the first
into the Minds of the vulgar with whom the wisest being oblig'd to comply in matter of Language it comes to pass at last that what was before but a common saying finds a degree of assent among the most considerate Nay what is not any longer to be endur'd they think it not enough to maintain this groundless perswasion but there are some so ridiculous as to derive a new kind of Divination from it which they call Amniomantia whereby they promise to foretel what-ever happiness or unhappiness should befall a Child newly born by the colour of that Membrane whereof they affirm that the redness signifies good success and that the blackness or blewness of it denotes the contrary To which they add another kind of Divination call'd Omphalomantia which teaches them to judge by the knots of the string whereby the Child is fasten'd to the After-burthen how many Children more the Mother shall have who according to their judgement will be Males if those intersections be of a colour inclining to black and Females if they be white which Observations are not only impertinent but also impious and superstitious The Third said That the common perswasion of the happiness attending Children born with these Coifs is well-grounded provided that it be taken in the sense wherein the Physicians who in all probability are more likely to be the Authors of it than those simple Women who receiv'd it from them would have it to be understood to wit that those who thus born cover'd with that fortunate Membrane in regard they are not put to so much trouble nor suffer so great violence in the passage by reason of its being open and easie come forth cloath'd out of their Mothers Wombs without being oblig'd to leave behind them the Membranes wherein they had been enclos'd in the Matrix whereas most other Children are forc'd to quit them at their coming into the World by reason of the Obstructions they meet with in their passage through those narrow streights which consequently is so much the more painful and laborious to them than it is to such as are coifed who are not to be imagin'd ever the more happy as to the remainder of their lives whereof the good or bad conduct are the true Causes of their happiness or unhappiness and not that Coif which can neither produce nor signifie them The Fourth said That those Children who are born thus coifed are not only more happy in their Birth but they are also such in all the actions of their lives as being commonly more peaceable and of a more quiet Constitution than such as leave that Membrane within their former lodgings who are accordingly more turbulent and restless and for that reason have not those insinuations whereby the former are recommended For in these the moderation of their manners and demeanour consequent to that of their humours gaining the hearts of all those with whom they converse raises them into the general esteem of all and so facilitates their accession to Honours and Employments it being certain that there may be some judgment made of the course of Life a Man is likely to take by the deportment of his Child-hood so is it no hard matter to give a ghess at the same by that of the Infant when he makes his first sally out of his Mothers Womb which is one of the most remarkable transactions of his Life Whence it may be inferr'd that that first coming abroad being free from the trouble and agitation whereof all others are sensible and which makes them forget their Vesture which is left behind by the way they ought accordingly to be dispenc'd from the misfortunes incident to others and enjoy a particular happiness The Fifth said That the most restless and most turbulent persons are commonly the most happy in this world whereas those who endeavour to walk according to the strict rules of Modesty and Reservedness do not carry on their business so well as the former do who confidently attempt any thing and imagine themselves the favourites of Fortune And thence it is that she on the other side is so assistant to them that though it be granted the Children born cloth'd are more meek and moderate than those who come into the World after the common rate yet would the clean contrary to what is pretended follow from it For instead of being cherish'd by Fortune it is seldom that she smiles on them but is much more kind to those stirring and tumultuary Spirits who many times obtain greater favours of her than they durst hope for had they demean'd themselves towards her with less earnestness and importunity The Sixth said That if every Man be the Artizan of his own Fortune those who are of the best Constitution and strongest Temper ought to be more happy than others whose irregularity of humors does manifestly cause that of their Actions and Fortunes Now the Children born with Cawls and Coifs about them seem to be less vigorous and of a weaker disposition than those who come into the World without any inasmuch as the latter being more earnest and violent are no sooner sensible of the time of their Deliverance but they courageously break through the Chains whereby they are detain'd the Membranes whereby they are encompass'd which those others having neither the Strength nor Courage to do it gives a great presumption that they will express but little upon other more pressing occasions and consequently they will content themselves with the mediocrity of their Conditions and not aspire to any thing extraordinary CONFERENCE CCXXXVII Of Antiperistasis SO great is the Indulgence of Nature that she thought it not enough to bestow Being and Existence on the things she hath produc'd but she hath also imprinted in them a strong Inclination to preserve it by fortifying them against the assaults of their Contraries the presence whereof sets them on such an edge that they become so much the more active And this is not only confirm'd in Animate Beings such as are Plants and Animals which vigorously oppose what-ever is hurtful to them by so powerful a Vertue that Men have been forc'd to find out a particular name for it to wit Antipathy but also in other Inanimate Bodies which generously stand upon the defensive when they are set upon by External Agents whose contrary qualities coming to engage against them they redouble their Forces and rally all together as it were into a Body the better to receive the Charge This is that which the Philosophers call Antiperistasis which is a vigorous resistance of the Subject caus'd by the contrariety of an Agent which encompasses it of all sides purposely to destroy or corrupt it It will be to no purpose to enter into any Dispute concerning the Existence of that which we call Antiperistasis but we shall lay it down for granted though it be contested by Cardan and some other Philosophers who maintain that Water Air and the other Subterraneous Bodies are not actually colder at
Melancholly in regard of their heat and driness which resolve and dissipate the animal Spirits as a vapourous humidity hinders their effusion by the obstruction which it causeth in the original of the Nerves or which is most probable because the clouds of those vapours occupying the ventricles of the Brain by their humidity moisten and relax the animal Spirits which remain immovable till they be deliver'd from the importunity of those vapours which moreover more easily ascending when the Body is at rest it happens that Sleep is frequently caus'd not only by watchings cares labour bathing heat and other things which dissipate the Spirits but also by sounds gentle murmurs of water frictions and motions silence and darkness unless we had rather say That the animal Spirits being most subtle and luminous bodies retire inwards during the darkness which is contrary to them The Sixth said That Sleep being not only a depravation but a total privation of actions since a thing exists but so far as it acts at the same proportion that we love our own Being we ought to hate Sleep and love Watching The great George Castriot the scourge of the Turks never slept more then two hours and the Poets had reason to term Sleep The Image of Death which the Scripture also expresses by Sleeping As therefore Death is to be avoided as much as possible so also ought Sleep were it not that both of them being inevitable evils all we can do is to keep as far off them and suffer our selves to be led as little to them as may be The Poets themselves seem willing to imprint in us a horror of Sleep when they feign it the Son of Hell or Erebus and Night the brother of Death the father of Morpheus and that his Palace was amidst the darkness of the Cimmerians Moreover the most imperfect Animals sleep more then others which is the reason Zoophytes or Plant-animals as the Sponge Coral and Oisters sleep continually Snails and some Flys three or four months Bears longer then other Animals and amongst these Birds as partaking more of the nature of Heaven sleep less then four-footed Beasts A Child so long as it approaches a bestial life in its Mothers belly and for the first years sleeps more than when 't is grown to Manhood and being again become by Age a Child sleeps more than formerly till he comes to the last sleep of death which reduces him to nothing Women phlegmatick persons drunkards and block-heads sleep more then Men sober and witty persons For we are no more to refer to the abuse of these Times in sleeping very much then to other Vices of the Age amongst the rest Idleness Eating and Drinking wherein there is none sober at this day but exceed their just measure Upon the Second point it was said That Strength as well as most other things in the World hath not an absolute but only a relative Being a thing being called strong in comparison of others which are less so Thus Antaeus was strong in respect of all other men but weak compared to Hercules And as Achilles was invulnerable in every other part saving the heel so Nature seems to have left in us a certain weakness and defect in some parts wherein some are more tender then others So that 't is hard to find one thing alike powerful towards all men since by reason of our several inclinations every one is differently affected The Ambitious will hold for Honours the Amorous for Women the Drinker for Wine and Truth which in the Scripture was judg'd strongest by King Darius who propos'd the present Problem to his four Courtiers would possibly be deemed the weakest in the Judgment of the most for to them that should take her part the same question might be put which Pilate ask'd our Lord What is Truth It is so frequently disguis'd by lying in moral matters so invelop'd in darkness and subject to the deceit of our Senses in natural things that as it is the least understood so we may say 't is the least follow'd our inclinations never tending towards an unknown object The strongest thing therefore is that which hath most power to incline our Will towards it self which Will following the counsel of the Understanding as again this acts not but by the species wherewith the Imagination supplies it 't is to the Imagination that I ascribe the greatest strength in the world since all other things borrow all their power from the Imagination by the opinion of Honour Profit and Pleasure which that Faculty makes us conceive therein and on the contrary the same Imagination ruines and destroys the force of all things accounted the most powerful whilst it considers them with a different biass 'T is by it that one abhors nothing more then Women whom so many others idolatrize Pleasures Honours Riches and all the Goods of Fortune are but so many crosses and punishments to those who have conceiv'd an aversion against them Death it self as terrible as it is oftentimes is despis'd and sought after out of a powerful consideration of Honour this too being nothing else but a Fancy magnifi'd by the opinion rais'd of it in the world Even Virtue draws all her power from Imagination alone for many a one thinks he embraces her quite naked whilst like Ixion he embraces nothing but a cloud and a phantasm and yet is as well satisfi'd with this as if he had a perfect fruition of her The Second said That the solution of this Problem depends upon the understanding of the term Strength If it be taken for a certain quality and power which renders things active that must be the strongest thing in the world which acts with most efficacy and power upon the most excellent things But forasmuch as there are as many sorts of agents as there are degrees of Being in Nature in Morals and in Transcendants and we may compare things together which are of a different genus yet there being no congruity and proportion but between those which are of the same species 't is hard to know absolutely which is the strongest thing since every one hath a vertue wholly peculiar because it hath a proper nature which is the principle and cause of the diversity of motions and actions According to which distinction I am of opinion That of agents purely natural Fire is the strongest since it alters and destroys all natural Bodies and its quality Heat is the most active of all Amongst living things Man is the strongest inasmuch as he renders himself master of all the fiercest Animals which he knows how either to subdue or tame Amongst men Kings are the strongest since they dispose of our Goods Lives and Wills Moral agents are different in force and activity according to the divers constitution of subjects upon which they act and make a different impression Honesty alone acts upon very few spirits Pleasures upon most Interest upon all Nevertheless since they act only by the opinion which they
skill'd in that Instrument The Third said That the Reason why persons born deaf are also mute is that he who speaks must first hear himself speak before he be heard by others otherwise he knows not whether himself hath spoken or no much less can others know and as little doth he remember the voice which he made use of to express this thing or another which is absolutely necessary to being able to employ the same voice when he would signifie the same thing But the case is not the same with him that having a good ear and intending to cause himself to be understood endeavours to express his conceptions of things by his voice which he articulates by the judgment of his ear as a Lutinist doth the strings of his Instrument which indeed is more artificially touch'd by a skillful then by an ignorant person yet ceaseth not to strike the Ear as the Language invented by such men without Precepts will not be less audible though more disagreeable then another Moreover Speech being as proper to man as Reason whereof 't is the Image whence possibly the Greeks denote both by the same word it may seem that one remote from all commerce would not cease as to reason so neither to speak but might as well do the one as the other If there be any obstacle it must proceed from some cause not from the material to wit the species of things which it imports not whether they be introduc'd by one sense or another Nor from the efficient the Organs of Speech being suppos'd intire nor from the Formal which cannot fail since 't is necessary for Speech to follow as often as the breath is strongly driven out of the Lungs through the sharp Artery into the Mouth organiz'd by the Epiglottis modifi'd by the Tongue minc'd by the Teeth and form'd by the Lips As for the final which is Communication 't is not less beneficial to one then to another Wherefore all the causes of Speech concurring and being supply'd to man by nature the effect must necessarily follow And if Beggars particularly those call'd Gipsies make to themselves a particular jargon which they call Blesche or Narquois it will not be harder for those we speak of to do as much Yea they will not find more difficulty therein then occurs in the inventing of new Characters by such as write in Cyphers which is also confirm'd by the judgment of the Fathers who hold that the alteration of Tongues at the building of Babel was nothing but the total abolition in each man's memory of the species of his maternal Language which Memory being thereupon become a ras'd table and like a white paper it concern'd men to agree together about new terms significative of their conceptions Otherwise they say if God had then infus'd an actual knowledg and habit of several Languages in all those Workmen this had not been a punishment but a reward of their arrogance and in some sort parallel to that famous gift of Tongues by the Holy Ghost at Pentecost The Fourth said That since nothing can be in the Intellect which was not before in the Sense the Species of Voice cannot be introduced into the Understanding but by some outward sense Not by the Hearing which is the right sense of Discipline since none speaks to the Children of whom the question is Nor by the Eyes whose sole object is the visible Species nor by the other Senses whose objects are also different from those of the Hearing Moreover a Language being comprehended under Grammar which is a Science it cannot be understood much less practis'd without either Precepts or Examples For want of which the memory of Children of whom we now speak not being furnish'd with any Idea can dictate nothing to the Muscles and Nerves the instruments of voluntary motion which therefore can form no Speech just as he that is not accustom'd to other exercises of the body no more then to those of the mind produces them not That God created Adam and Eve with Speech and that as 't is reported some Children have spoken at their birth yea some in their Mothers bellies these are things purely supernatural and from which nothing can be inferr'd The Fifth said That Women have such a facility of speaking that if two Children especially of different sexes were bred up together 't is likely the female would speak first not only as the more forward but as the greater tatler Which was the reason of the miscarriage of the King of Egypts trial which he made only with Boys And yet this habit of Speech is such in men that in our age the Constable of Castile's Brother being born deaf crost the Rule that persons deaf by birth are always dumb as also hapned to many of the same Family of Velasco For he was taught to Speak Write Read and Understand Authors by putting a cord about his neck and straitning or loosning the same to advertise him when to open or shut his mouth by the example of his Teacher that so he might â—xpress the things which were represented to him at the same time nor was there other difference found between his speech and that of other men but only that he did not regulate his voice speaking commonly too high which hath also sometimes been done by making the deaf man bite the Instrument upon which the sound they would have him hear was form'd because the impression which the Brain receives thereby answers in some sort to the Sense of Hearing CONFERENCE CLVII Whether is better to guard the Frontier or carry the War into the Enemies Country PEace being the end of War he manages War best that soonest attains that end Now Peace is attain'd two ways either by quelling the Enemies force which seldom happens and is of long discussion between parties almost equal as those that go to war commonly are too great inequality presently subduing the weak to the strong or else by rendring all his attempts ineffectual and this is more easily done by expecting him firmly and resolutely then by assaulting him at his own home withall the inconveniences and incertainties that occur in remote expeditions Moreover every design ought to be render'd as infallible as is possible yet so many unexpected difficulties arise in things which appear most easie that we find by daily experience the Theory much different from the Practice Which being presum'd certain as indeed it is none doubts but a Minister of State may better lay the plat-form of a design in a Country which is accessible to him and at his disposal as also that both the Leaders and Souldiers may better give and execute Orders in a place where the Inhabitants are obedient and ready to contribute their care pains and money for promoting the projects which serve to the advancement of their party then in places where they must depend upon the honesty of Guides who are frequently deceivers or apt to be deceiv'd and where all things are contrary
some to the disproportion between the seeds whence she that is barren with her first Husband is fruitful with her second Those of the woman are either internal or external The internal depend partly upon the seed and menstrual Blood and partly upon the temper of the Womb and the habit of the body The seed of a woman as well as that of man must be of a laudable temper quantity and consistence and provided of spirits enough If the maternal blood which concurs likewise to generation be too plentiful or too little no effect follows any more then if it were corrupted or wanted other requisite conditions The Womb which is like the soil to corn may be hurt either in its temper or its conformation or in the solution of continuity all which disorders hinder gravidation As for the habit of body we observe that fat women are barren either because the matter of Seed which is the purer portion of the Blood is turn'd into fat or because the Epiploon of fat Women pressing upon the Orifice of the Womb hinders the Seed from entring into the bottom of it Nor are Women too lean fit for Children by reason of their dryness and the tenuity of their Womb although they are far more fit than fat Women but this leanness is to be understood of so great an extenuation that it leavs the parts dedicated to Generation destitute of their vigour and due temperature Neither are the very tall or very low much fitter but those that are of a moderate Corpulency and Stature whose Breasts are firm and their lower parts larger than their upper Now since Conception is an Action proper to the Womb which quickens the Genitures the Woman ought rather to be said the Cause thereof than the Man and by the reason of contraries the Defect thereof must likewise be charg'd upon her The Second said That to blame Women for being more frequently barren than Men is to deprive them of their chief Glory which is Fruitfulness For Nature form'd them chiefly for propagation as the Conformation of their Bodies seems to prove in which the parts serving to that purpose as the Womb and Breasts have direct communications not only between themselves but also with the noblest parts of the Body Whence the Civilians reckon not Praegnation amongst Diseases notwithstanding all its inconveniences but with Physitians as a sign of health and good disposition Whereof Vlpian l. 14. ff de aedilit edicto gives this Reason Because their greatest and peculiar Office is to receive and preserve the fruit And therefore Woman having been in Nature's first intention design'd for Generation she must be also much more fit for it because Nature never fails of her end than Man who being born for Command Labour Contemplation and other more sublime Employments is design'd for Generation but in the more remote intention of Nature For not to speak of the desire of Coition which might renew the old quarrel that cost Tiresias his Eyes Women seem far more desirous to be Mothers than Men do to be Fathers and Nature gives no desires in vain Besides Man is naturally Hot and Dry a Temper less proper for Generation and he inoreases the same by Hunting Warr Exercises and other violent Labours not to speak of business and study On the contrary Women living alwayes at ease have a Constitution both of Body and Mind more calm and consequently more fit for this Action or rather Passion As therefore 't is more easie to suffer than than to act so Women must find less difficulty in Generation and consequently have less impediment to propagate than Men. I say nothing of Excesses in Dyet wherein Men are alwayes more licentious yet 't is the Excess of Wine that some alledge as the chief Cause why some Northern Countries are at this day almost desart whereas anciently they were so populous that Historians call'd the North the Shop of Men and the Magazine of Nations Witness the frequent Colonies issu'd from thence and the great inundations they have upon other parts of the world And possibly the reason why the Hebrew Law oblig'd a Man to marry the Relict of his issuless Brother was because it suppos'd the defect to proceed from the Husband and not from the Wife otherwise why should the Sister of a Wife deceas'd with issue succeed in her stead too But this Sex is reckon'd alwayes fit for ingendring and indeed is ever ready for it as the other is not which is the reason as a late Lady said why Men make sute to Women rather than these to them Perhaps also upon the same account barrenness under the Old Law was accounted by Women so great a reproach because being very rare 't is a kind of a monstrous thing in their Sex to be barren Moreover we hear many Women complain to the Judges which is one of the principal Causes of unfruitfulness But Histories afford scarce above three or four Women of whose inability their Husbands complain'd And to speak truth as fertility is imputed to the field and not to the grain so it must also be to the Woman alone who is the field of Nature and not to the Man The Third said That besides the Internal Causes of fruitfulness and barrenness there are also External ones which depend upon the Air Dyet Exercises Passions and the abuse of the other things call'd Not-natural The Air by the continual alteration it causeth in the Body which attracts the same by Respiration and Transpiration sometimes occasioneth either fruitfulness or sterility according to the variety of its Substance Temper and Qualities two whereof viz. Excessive Heat and Cold are great Enemies to Generation the one melting the other congealing the Humors but the excess of Heat least hinders it especially in Women the coldness of whose Temper is corrected by the warmth and increas'd by the coldness of the Air whence they are more amorous in Summer than in Winter Whereas the greater heat of Men is weakned by that of Summer and augmented by the coldness of Winter during which therefore they are more prone to Love So Dyet too contributes much to render our Bodies fruitful or barren not only altering but making them of the same Temper with it self Thus the waters of Nilus are so fertile that they make the Egyptian Women bring forth three or four Children at once by reason of the Salt-Nitre wherewith that River is impregnated and wherein Chymists place the principle of Fecundity because Ashes and Earth depriv'd of their Nitre produce nothing But cold waters even such as have the Virtue to petrifie render Women especially barren as most Women in Spain are through their frequent use of Ice and cold waters though some lay the fault upon the rarity and tenuity of their Bodies and the excess of Heat which also is the reason why the African and Southern people are not so fruitful as those of the North. Dyet hot and moist easie of digestion nutritive and full
of good juice conduceth much to render Women fruitful On the contrary the frequent use of food hot and dry gross and of bad juice may render them barren as Leeks and Garlick do and amongst other Plants Mint which was therefore forbidden to be eaten or planted in time of war wherein 't is needful to repair by Fecundity the loss of Men it causeth In like manner want of Exercise by the heaping up of superfluous Humors and too violent and continual Exercises by desiccating the parts oftentimes occasion sterility Amongst the Passions Sadness is the greatest Enemy to Generation whence Hesiod forbids marry'd people to see one another after a Funeral but only at their coming from a Bath or from places of Mirth In fine what ever is capable to impair the goodness of the Temper is contrary to Fruitfulness and Generation which above all other Natural Actions requires an exact harmony of the qualities and a perfect disposition of the noble parts which supply Matter and Spirits fit for this Action And although Men and Women are alike expos'd to External Causes yet Women being less vigorous are sooner wrought upon by them For to Internal Causes which are the most considerable Women are undoubtedly more subject since beside Seed which they supply as well as Man who to deserve the name of fruitful ought only to supply the same in requisite quantity quality and consistence and place it in convenient Recepticles the Woman must also afford Blood and also a place for receiving and preserving both the Seeds and Blood namely her Womb the least disorder whereof is sufficient to marr the whole work of Generation Wherefore since she contributes most to Generation and there are more Causes in her concurring thereunto if it take not Effect she is more in fault than the Man who hath not so many several concurrences in the business The Fourth said That the Causes of sterility being either Natural or Adventitious and equal in the Man and the Woman nothing can be determin'd upon this Question For in either Sex there are both universal and particular deficiences of right Temper and as many Effeminate Men as Viragoes the one not less unfit for Generation than the other as Aristotle saith Castration is practis'd in both and disorderly living is equal as well in Male as Female in these dayes For if Men exceed in drinking Maids and Women are as bad in Gluttony and Lickerishness If there be any difference 't is from the diversity of Climate Women being found more fruitful in hot Countries and less in cold but Men contrarily the intemperies of either Sex being corrected by an opposite constitution of Air. Hence such Women as have been long barren sometimes become fruitful by change of Air Places manner of Life and especially of Age by which the temperament of the Body being sensibly alter'd it acquires the Fruitfulness it wanted by acquiring the Qualities and Conditions necessary to Generation Many likewise upon the same reason become fuitful after the use of Mineral Waters or Baths and being thereby deliver'd from several Diseases to which barren Women are more subject than such as have Children whom Parturition rids of abundance of Excrements peculiar to that Sex and occasioning many disorders in the barren The Fifth said That the observation made by Bodin in his Republick and several other famous Authors that the number of Women much exceeds that of Men seems to void the Question Nature having thereby sufficiently given us to understand That fewer men are as fruitful as more women Which observation is verifi'd not only in the East and other Countries where plurality of Wives hath places but also in France where there is no Province wherein Virgins remain not unmarry'd for want of Husbands Moreover one man may beget abundance of Children in the space of nine moneths during which a woman breeds but one or two and therefore Man seems more fruitful then Woman who beginning to be capable of Generation but two years before Man doth viz. at 12 years old at the soonest ends 23 years sooner then he for men generate at 70 years of age and more but women end at 50. During which time also they are subject to far more infirmities and maladies than men who have not above four or five whereof women are not capable but women have fifty or threescore peculiar to themselves CONFERENCE CLXXVIII Whether Complaisance proceeds from Magnanimity or Poorness of Spirit COmplaisance is a habit opposite to Roughness the first being a Species of Civility the latter of Rusticity Now since we are complaisant either in good or bad things to be so must be commendable or blameable according to the nature of the object But because no body doubts that we ought to be complaisant in vertuous actions and that they are as culpable who connive at vice as they that commit it It remains to consider of Complaisance in indifferent things as 't is in common practise amongst men and as Juvenal represents it in a person that falls a weeping as soon as he sees his friends tears and when he smiles laughs aloud and if you say you are very hot he sweats if cold he runs to his Fur-gown Now the Question is whether such a man hath more of courage or baseness I conceive he shews himself a very pitiful fellow For this deportment differs not from that servile Vice Flattery which is near akin to Lying and easily turns from an indifferent to a vicious action Thus Courtiers varnish vices with the name of such vertues as have most conformity therewith calling Avarice Frugality Lasciviousness Love Obstinacy Constancy and so in other cases till they render themselves ridiculous even to those they praise who how vain soever they may be yet cannot hear their own praises without blushing at them being conscious that they displease all the hearers Indeed when I am complaisant to any one 't is for fear to offend him and fear was never an effect of Magnanimity To which all that can be excepted is that it belongs also to Prudence to fear formidable things But Fortitude and Courage are never employ'd in the practise of this vertue which therefore is very much suspected and oft-times serves for an excuse of cowardice Hence old men whom their cold blood makes less courageous are esteem'd the most prudent and if they be not the most complaisant 't is to be imputed to the sullenness attending that age as jollity doth youth Moreover as Courage leads us to act without fear of danger what we conceive good and just so it teaches us to call things by their proper names as Philip's Souldiers did On the contrary Complaisance teaches people to admire beauty in a deformed woman to commend a bad Poets Verses and desire a copy of them from him to give fair words to such as we will not or cannot do any kindness to in brief to dissemble all things and to disguise our words contrary to the frequent express
which displease the more judicious So that as there is one beauty absolutely such and another respective and in comparison of those who judge differently thereof according as they find it in themselves whence the Africans paint the Devil white because themselves are black and the Northern people paint him black because themselves are white so there are Gestures and Motions purely and simply becoming honest and agreeable others such only by opinion of the beholders as are the Modes of Salutation and lastly others absolutely bad as Frowning Winking biting the Lip putting out the Tongue holding the Head too upright or crooked beating of measures with the Fingers in short making any other disorderly Gesture All which defects as they are opposite to perfections which consist in a right situation of all the parts without affectation proceed from the Phansie either sound or depraved Which happens either naturally or through imitation The first case hath place in Children who from their birth are inclined to some motions and distortions of their Muscles which being double if one become weaker and its Antagonist too short it draws the part whereto it gives motion out of its natural seat as is seen in those that squint The second is observed in Children somewhat bigger who beholding some Gesture repeated render the same so familiar to themselves that at length it becomes natural to them Hence the prohibition of Mothers give their Children not to counterfeit the vices their companions bodies is not void even of natural reason because the Phansie is stronger in a weak Mind and when the Memory is unfurnished or other species whence the Phansies of Women are more powerful then those of Men. The Minds of Children being weak and residing in soft pliant Bodies more easily admit any idea's once conceiv'd And as a Language is more easily learn'd by Use then by Precepts so example is Extreamly prevalent and sweetly insinuating into the Phansie by the Senses diffuses its influence over the whole Body The Third said That if the Soul be an harmony as the pleasure it takes therein seems to intimate we need seek no other cause of the several motions and cadences of the Body which it animates 'T is the Soul which moves all the Nerves of the Body and carries to all the parts such portion as she pleases of Spirits proper to move them whereby like a player upon a Lute or some other Instrument she makes what string sound she pleases stretching one and loosening another And as Musick is such as the Quirrester pleases to make it delighting the Ear if it be proportionate thereunto and procuring the Musitian the repute of skilfulness if not the contrary happens so the Soul imprints upon the Body one figure or another which make a good or bad grace insomuch that oftentimes gracefulness is more esteemed than Beauty unless it may be better said to be part thereof for want of which beautiful persons resemble inanimate Statues or Pictures But as true Beauty is wholly natural and an Enemy to Artifice so the Soul ows to its original and first temper the good or posture which it gives its Body and there is as much difference between natural gracefulness and affected postures as between the Life and the Picture truth and appearance yea the sole suspicion of affectation offends us Moreover a Clown seldom becomes Courtly and whatever pains be bestowed in teaching him good Carriage yet still his defects appear through his constraint as on the contrary amongst Shepherds most remote from the civilities of the Court we see gentileness and dexterities which manifest that good carriage or Gestures are purely natural The Fourth said That in the Gestures and Motions of the Body two principles must be acknowledged one natural and the other accidental The former is founded in the structure and composition of every one's Body the diversity whereof produceth with that of the spirits humors and manners all the Actions and Passions which depend thereon the true motive causes of our Gestures and Carriages Hence he that suffers pain frowns he that repents bites his Lip or Fingers he that admires something and dares not express it shrugs his shoulders he that muses deeply turns his Eyes inward and bites the end of his Pen or Nails The accidental principle is imitation which next to Nature is the most efficacious cause and acts most in us Man being born for imitation more than any other Creatures as appears in that scarce five or six Species of Birds imitate our Language the Ape alone our Gestures we on the contrary imitate not only the voices of all Animals but also all their Actions And therefore as it cannot be denied that Nature contributes to our Gestures so neither can it be doubted that Imitation hath a power therein CONFERENCE CXCI. Which is most proper for Study the Evening or the Morning IF Antiquity had not had Errors the cause of those who prefer the study of the Evening before that of the Morning would be very desperate But Reasons having more force here than the Authorities of Pedagogues who hold Aurora the friend of the Muses only to the end that their Scholars rising betimes in the Morning themselves may have the more time left after their exercises I conceive the Evening much more fit for any Employment of the Mind than any other part of the day the Morning leaving not only the first and more common wayes full of Excrements but also all the Ventricles of the Brain wherein the Spirits are elaborated and also the Arteries and Interstices of the Muscles full of vapors whence proceed the frequent oscitations contortions and extension of the members upon our awaking to force out the vapors which incommode them On the contrary the Evening even after repast finds those first wayes full of good Aliments which send up benigne and laudable vapors which allay and temper the acrimony of other more sharp and biting found by experience in Men fasting who for that reason are more prone to Choler Moreover Study consisting in Meditation and this in reflection upon the Species received into the Phansie 't is certain that the report of these introduced all the day long serves for an efficacious Lesson to the Mind when it comes to make review of the things offered to the Intellect for it to draw consequences from the same and make a convenient choice but in the Morning all the species of the preceding day are either totally effaced or greatly decayed Moreover the melancholy humor which is most proper for Study requires constancy and assiduity which ordinarily accompanies this humor and it is predominant in the Evening as Bloud is in the Morning according as Physicians allot the four humors to the four parts of the natural day as therefore the Sanguine are less proper for Study than the Melancholy so is the Morning than the Evening Hence the good Father Ennius never versified so well as after he had drunk which seldom happens in
The same thing was said by one of the Satyrists but much more pleasantly for being as we say here upon the Save-all that is ready to give up the last gasp he cry'd out to his friend Draw up the Curtain the Play is done For the greatest part of our Complements being only so many fictions and flatteries Traffick and negotiations being so many disguises and humane life consisting in those actions the consequence is that all the world is under a Mask and that the less dangerous since there are some make it their Profession to be mask'd as do also Ambassadors and other persons of quality in some places of Italy when they have a desire not to be known And as to what hath been said against Painting it seems to be a little too severe to blame that pardonable curiosity which the women are only guilty of to preserve and heighten their greatest Treasure that is their Beauty upon the account whereof they are principally recommendable to men who were it not for that would be apt to sleight them much more than now they do For what do the poor women do more in that than is daily done in Medicine whereof one part treats of Cosmeticks that is of Painting and is brought in for the reparation of the defects and deformities of Nature The Third said That the Mask or Vizzard by the Latines called Persona either upon this consideration that it changes the condition of the person causing him to be taken for some other or haply à per-sonando by reason of the new sound he gives the words pronounc'd through the Vizzard This invention of Vizzards as also that of speaking Prologues before Playes is by some attributed to one Thespis an Athenian Poet of whom it is said Et plaustris vexisse poemita Thespis Quae canerent agerentque peruncti foecibus ora By others to Aeschylus the Tragidian Post hunc personae pallaeque repertor honestae Aeschylus At first they painted with divers colours the faces of those Comedians who were carry'd about the streets in Chariots but that humour not taking so well because the same Actor by that means found it very troublsome to act several parts they found out the convenience of Masks and Vizards made as near as they could like those whom they were to represent till such time as the Macedonians became formidable in Greece For these meeting with some persons in Vizards who resembled them the Actors were somewhat at a loss how they should handsomely come off whereupon the business being taken into deliberation it was resolv'd that those made thence forward should be for the representation of extravagant or ridiculous persons or such as might frighten the Spectators such as were those which the Greeks called Mormolycea bug-bears and Oxyodontas and the Latines Larvas wherewith the Mothers threatned their little Children Gumias Lamias Sillos c. These last represented the countenances of ridiculous and abhominable women Cum personae pallentis hiatum In gremio matris formidat rusticus infans She was also Magno manducus hiatu They were at first made of the leavs of the Fig-tree then of a certain herb that had large leavs and from its being us'd upon that occasion called personata Afterwards the said Vizards were made of the bark of Trees whence came this expression Oraque corticibus sumunt horrenda cavatis And at last they came to be of wood whence this other Vt tragicus cantor ligno tegit ora cavato Whence it may be inferr'd that the design of using Masks and Vizards upon the Stage where it is most us'd is in order to imitation and to heighten the confidence of the Actors who by that means are not known And the convenience and decency of that custom is such that one of the greatest reproaches lying on the memory of Nero is that having brought some persons nobly descended upon the Stage for to be Actors he caus'd them to put off their Vizards while they play'd on the Flute and forbad the Comedians to appear vizarded upon the Stage To this may be added that according to the Counsel of the Holy Fathers women and young maids when they walk abroad nay when they go to Church ought to be not only mask'd but also veil'd to prevent the temptations which the full sight of them might cause in men and the destraction of their own and the others devotion Now the female sex making up above one half of the world we cannot upon any rational grounds universally find fault with that thing or custom the use whereof is allow'd to the greater part CONFERENCE CCXIX. Of Fables and Fictions and whether their conveniences or inconviences be greater OF all the flowers of Rhetorick lying is one of the worst and withal so much the more pernicious the more full it is of artifice For if the saying of Aristotle be true That the lyar always deserves to be blamed there is a certain resemblance between him who simply tells a lie and him who simply takes away another man's life by poyson inasmuch as the latter infects the Heart and the former viciates and corrupts the source of our Ratiocination the end whereof is only to come to the knowledge of Truth As therefore the poysoning of a man is always a heinous and punishable crime but that Steward who should poyson his Master when he gave somewhat to eat or drink when the other pretended to be exteamly hungry or dry would be the greatest villany in the world and deserve a far greater punishment So he who simply tells a lie is not so much to be blamed as he who covers and disguises his lie under the appearance of some probable history which is clearly receiv'd by our understanding and this thus drawn in by the liklyhood of the relation grows less distrustful of it than of the other kinds of falshood which are deliver'd without any artifice So that lying and consequently Fables and all the species thereof have the same proportion to our Understanding as Monsters have to Nature our Understanding cannot endure them whereas Truth is its sustenance Thence it comes that those Fables which are destitute of the ornament of Truth which is probability are not heard with any patience such as are old Wives Tales and the like absurd relations which are so ridiculous that only the ignorance of Children is capable of entertaining them with any pleasure but with so much the greater danger to themselves in regard that those tender Tables receiving the impression of some false perswasion will not afterwards so easily part with it nay on the contrary it commonly continues there to the end at least some part of it as if Time were not able so fully to eat it out but there may be seen some lines of the first draught Whence it comes that some eminent persons do account it a great oversight in the education of Children to entertain them with Tales and Stories instead whereof those weak minds wherein as in
the Night correcting that hot and dry distemper it is the more convenient that Sleep should do as much in the Day time by taking off then somewhat of their Choler The Second said That the retrival and restauration of the Spirits obliges the Animal to sleep which ought to continue at least for such a space of time as amounts to the third part of that a man hath been waking and should never exceed the one half of it Far is it therefore from being imaginable that Nature should be able to endure what is affirmed of the seven Sleepers or the long nap of Epimenides which lasted fifty years Nor are we to give any more credit to what is related to us concerning a Plant in the Low-Countries which will keep people waking many nights and dayes together without any inconvenience but the time when we should begin or end our sleep being left to our own discretion 't is requisite we should accommodate our selves to the order prescrib'd by Nature which hath appointed the day to labour and the night to rest in Nay it is also the advice of Hippocrates Galen and all Physicians who think it not enough to direct rest in the night and waking in the day but also conceive very great hopes of those who in the time of their sickness are so irregular therein Add to this that darkness silence and the coldness of the night being fit to recruit the Spirits and promote their retirement within whereas light noise and the heat of the day are more proper to occasion their egress for the exercise of actions which granted he who observes not this rule charges Nature with an erronious proceeding And that this is her way is apparent hence that those Animals which are guided only by her motion which is as certain as our reason is ordinarily irregular go that way to work Cocks and other Birds go to their rest and awake with the Sun if any of our Domestick Creatures do otherwise our irregularity is the cause thereof and that perversion is of no less dangerous consequence than that of the Seasons which is ever attended by diseases And who makes any doubt but that the greatest perfection of the Heavens consists in their regular motion the principal cause of their duration Which order since we are not able to imitate it is but requisite we should come as near it as we can in our actions among which sleeping and waking being the hindges on which all the others of our life do hang if there be any irregularity in these confusion and disorder must needs be expected in all the rest as may be seen in the lives of Courtiers of both Sexes who turn night to day and day to night a course of life much different from that which is observ'd by the Superiours and Members of regulated companies Besides it is the Morning that not only holds a stricter correspondence with the Muses but is also the fittest time for the performance of all the functions of Body and Mind Then is it that Physicians prescribe exercises in regard that the Body being clear'd of the Excrements of the first and second concoction is wholly dispos'd for the distribution of Aliment and evacuation of the Excrements of the third So that he who spends that part of the day about his affairs besides the expedition he meets with does by that means maintain the vigour of his Body and Mind which is commonly dull'd by sleeping in the day time which fills the Head with vapours and when exercise comes to succeed it in the warmest part of the day the heat which is then commonly greatest makes it less supportable Therefore Nature who is a sure guide inclines us to sleepiness in the Evening there being not any thing but the multiplicity and distraction of Civil Affairs which depriving us of that Function as it does of divers others makes the Life of Man so much the less certain the more he is involv'd in Affairs whereas the duration of that of Animals and next to them of Country-people and such as comply with the conduct of Nature is commonly of a greater length and more certain CONFERENCE CCXXI Whether the Child derives more from the Father or the Mother IF our Fore-fathers may be conceiv'd wise enough to have known the nature of things it is to be acknowledg'd that the Child derives most from the Father since that they thought fit to bestow on him his name rather than that of the Mother and that the name is the mark and character of the thing Besides the Male being more perfect larger and stronger than the Female which indeed is an imperfection and default of Nature whose constant design it is to make a Male and is not disappointed but through want of heat vigour and temperament it is but rational that what proceeded from these two should have the denomination from the more perfect of them Thus a Regiment is known by the name of the Colonel a City by that of its Founder a Law and Ordinance by that of the Law-giver and a Receipt the Composition whereof consists of two simple medicaments hath most of the nature of the stronger and that which is of greatest virtue This is further confirm'd by the common Comparison which is us'd to express the difference there is between the Father and the Mother in the business of generation For the Mother and particularly the Matrix is compar'd to a field and the paternal seed to the grain which is sown in that field which serves well enough in order to its sprouting and shooting forth but supplies it only with matter which is determinated by the form of the grain from which the Plant produc'd of it receives its being So that the present Question amounts to no more than if a Man should ask Whether an ear of Wheat deriv'd more from the ground or from the seed that had been sowne in it A further proof hereof may be deduc'd from the instruments of generation which being more apparent in the man than in the woman are a silent insinuation that the former contribute more thereto than the latter And the greatest and most remarkable difference that there is between the Children being that of the Sex the experiment alledg'd by Physicians that if the right Testicle be bound Males will be produc'd as Females will if the contrary clearly shews that by the Father's part the Sex is determinated and consequently it is from him that there do also proceed the least individual differences and circumstances wherein the likeness or unlikeness of Children to their Fathers and Mothers either in Mind or Body doth consist For if the Males especially should retain more from the Mothers than they do from the Fathers that proverbial saying would prove false which affirms that Fortes creantur fortibus in regard that most women are chargeable with a want of Courage And daily experience makes it apparent that one of the greatest and most common causes of
Valour is deduc'd from the Fathers side Upon which principle is grounded the account we make of Nobility which comes seldom but from the Father's side whereas the want of Nobility on the Mother's side does not make the Child less a Gentleman Nay some have made it a Question whether the Mother did contribute any thing to the formation of the foetus or only found it nourishment But those who have treated more nicely of this matter unanimously agree that the Woman's Seed is much weaker and more watery than that of the Man serving only to qualifie it as Water does Wine yet so as that the Water is converted into the nature of the Wine and is call'd Wine as soon as it is mixt with it As to those Children who chance to be more like their Mothers than their Fathers 't is to be conceiv'd one of Nature's fagaries who delighting in variety cannot produce many children but there must consequently be a great diversity of Lineaments in their faces and figures in their members among which the idea of a Woman imprinted in the imagination of the Father may be communicated to his Seed which consequently expresses that figure The second said That there were three kinds of resemblances to wit that of the Species that of the Sex and that of the Effigies as to the Body and that of manners as to the Soul or The resemblance of the Species is when a Man begets a Man a Woman proceeds from the material Principles of Generation which the Mother contributes more plentifully then the Father the proof whereof may be seen in the copulation of Animals of different Species For if a Hee-goat couples with a Sheep he shall beget a Sheep which shall have nothing of the Goat in it save that the fleece will be a little rougher then it is wont to be And if a Ram couples with a She-goat the production will be a Goat whose hair will be somewhat softer than otherwise But as to what is related of Aristo's having had a Daughter by an Ass who for that reason was called Onoscele of Stellius's having another by a Mare who was thence called Hippona and of a Sheep which brought forth a Lyon in the pastures of Nicippus to whom it presaged Tyranny of Alcippa who was deliver'd of an Elephant having been impregnated by an Elephant are to be look'd on as monstrous and possibly fabulous Productions The resemblance of the Sex depends on the temperature and predominancy of the Seeds For if the seed of both Male and Female be very hot Males will be engendred if cold Females and both of them will be either vigorous or weak according to the predominancy of heat or cold Whence it follows that this resemblance does not proceed more from the one then the other of those who are joyn'd together but the resemblance of Effigie and the other accidents of the Body and of the manners is more hard to resolve there being a secret vertue in both the Seeds which as Aristotle affirms is continu'd in it to the fourth Generation as may be confirm'd by the story of Helida who having lain with a Negro brought forth a white Child but her Grandchild by that was black Plutarch affirms the same thing to have happen'd in the fourth Generation of a Negro And yet this resemblance proceeds rather from the Mother's side than the Father's for if the causes which communicate most to their effects imprint most of their nature into them by that greater communication those effects accordingly retain so much the more of their Causes Now the Mother communicates more to the Child then the Father does for she supplies him with Seed those who have maintain'd the contrary being persons not much skill'd in Anatomy and after she hath contributed as much as the Father to that Generation she alone nourishes the foetus with her menstrual blood which then begins not to follow any longer the course of the Moon whereby it was regulated before Besides coming thus to furnish the said foetus with nourishment for the space of nine Months it is no wonder she should absolutely tranform it into her own nature which is thence accounted but one and the same in respect of both Mother and Child Now there is not any thing liker or can retain more of it then the thing it self which cannot be said of the Father who is not only different from the Embryo whom he hath begotten but also hath not any thing common with it after that first action So that there are many Children posthumi and born long after the death of their Fathers which thing never happens after the death of their Mothers nay it is seldom seen that a Child taken out of the body of a Mother ready to dy ever thrives much afterwards Though we shall not stick to acknowledge that what is related of the first person of the race of the Caesars from whom that Section was called the Caesarean might possibly happen according to the Relation yet is it done with this restriction that most of the other Stories told of it are fabulous But if the Mother comes afterwards to suckle her Child as Nature and the Example of all other Animals teaches her which is haply the reason of their being more vigorous and of a continuance of life more regular than that of the man that second nourishment added to the former being drawn from her milk which derives the quality of the mass of blood from which it is extracted makes him absolutely conformable to the Mother For if nourishment may as we find it to be true change the Temperament of Persons well advanc'd in years with much more reason may it work a remarkable alteration in the Body and Mind of a Child newly come into the World who is as it were a smooth Table susceptible of any impression Whence it is to be concluded that they proceed very rationally who are so careful of the well-fare of their little ones when the Mothers either by reason of sickness of upon some other account are not able to bring them up as to be very inquisitive about the Nurses they put them to and the quality of their Milk Nay what is more are not the changes caus'd by Nurses in the Body of the Infant as considerable as that which happens to the two seeds of Male and Female mixt at the Generation which recover their increase by the irroration of the Maternal Blood which flows thereto and if it be impure does communicate its impurity to it as on the contrary being pure it is many times able to purifie the corrupted seed of the Male Whence Physicians have observ'd that sound Children have descended from Fathers subject to the Leprosie and such diseases Add to this that the safety on the Mothers side is greater than on the Father's Moreover they are the Mothers from whom proceeds the Imagination which acts upon their Embryo all the time they are with Child and thence it comes that
corrupted humours without the good and laudable is more proper thereunto than Phlebotomie which on the contrary sometimes evacuates the good juice and not the vicious when the same is impacted and adherent to some part remote from the open'd Vein In fine Blood-letting is as little profitable when the impurity is in the habit of the Body Whence 't is too hard to draw the humours into the Veins but it is more expedient to resolve and make them transpire by sweats exercise abstinence and other labours The Fourth said That Blood-letting is profitable in every vitiosity of the Blood which either is corrupted in substance and quality or offends in quantity or causeth a fluxion upon some Part or presses and loads it or else is too much inflam'd Nevertheless with this precaution that regard is to be had to the Disease the strength temper age sex habitation custom and particular nature of the Patient But generally every great hot and acute Disease requires Phlebotomie which on the contrary is an enemy to cold Diseases and all crudities because it refrigerates by the loss of heat and spirits flowing out with the Blood Also diminution of strength caus'd by any evacuation or resolution prohibits bleeding but not that where the strength is oppress'd by abundance of humours which must be presently eliminated Children who need Blood for their growth as breeding Women do for the nourishment of their Child old men who want heat and Spirits those who have small Veins or rare and softish flesh ought not to be let blood but with great precautions Nor is Phlebotomie to be administred in great cold or great heat nor after great watchings and labours And although the quantity of Blood depends upon the strength and the Disease yet 't is safest to take rather less but by no means to imitate the Ancients who let Blood till the swooning of the Patient in Inflammations violent Pains and very burning Fevers which they sometimes cur'd by this course but commonly caus'd a cold Intemperies to the whole Body during the remainder of life Upon the Second Point it was said That God having in the Universe imprinted an Image of his own Majesty to the end to make himself known to men hath also contracted the same in each part thereof wherein we observe some shadow of the distinction of the Divine Essence into Three Persons And 't is with this Ternary Number that he hath as 't were stamp'd for his own Coin the noblest parts of the World which the Pythagoreans have also for that reason divided into three namely The Intellectual which are the Heavens the place of Intelligences the Elementary and the Animal each of which is again divided into three parts The Intellectual or Celestial into the Heaven of Planets the Firmament and the Empyreal The Elementary into the Air Water and Earth And the Animal into Vegetable Sensitive and Rational which is Man who comprehends in himself eminently all those parts of the World the Elementary being in the Liver the Animal in the Heart the Intellectual in the Brain wherein as in its principal Sphere the Rational Soul establishes a particular World every ones Head being a Globe which is divided again into three parts which are the Imagination Memory and Judgment Amongst which the Imagination the principle of the others motion and action represents the animal World Memory serving for a subject matter to receive the impressions of the species consign'd to it is the Elementary and Judgment the Intellectual The three parts of each of which Worlds are again correspondent to the same Faculties The Imagination upon account of the continual circumvolution of the Species is the Heaven of Planets The Memory in reference to the fixation of the same Species is their Firmament And the Judgment the highest of these Powers is the Empyraeal To the three parts of the Elementary The Imagination for its mobility and subtilty is like the Air Memory for its soft humidity fitting it to receive all sorts of Figures may be compar'd to the Water and Judgment the base and foundation of the rest for the solidity of its consistence and siccity symbolizeth with the Earth Lastly to the three parts of the Animal World the Memory receiving increase or diminution by humidity the principle of vegetation resembles the Vegetable the Imagination by its heat and activity the Animal and the Judgment the Rational And though these three Faculties be united in the substance of the Soul nevertheless they are different not only in their temperaments actions and ages but also in their seats as that of Memory is the hinder part of the Brain which people scratch to call any thing to mind that of Imagination is the forepart whence they lift up their heads when they would vehemently imagine any thing and that of Judgment is the middle part which is the cause why in a deep study people hold down the head But to make choice of each in particular their operations must be consider'd Some make very much noise and little action as Advocates and Proctors of a Court who make much a do to put a business in order to lay it open and digest it although without deciding any thing and such is the Imagination which unites and compounds the Species represents them to the Judgment carries them to the register of the Memory or extracts them out by Reminiscence Others make little bustle and much action as Judges and so doth the Judgment The last have neither stir nor action as the Registers who only transcribe what is dictated to them and so doth the Memory a passive Power The Sciences themselves which fall under the Jurisdiction of the Mind are also subject to each of these Faculties Memory hath under it the Tongues Grammar Positive Theologie History Humanity Law Geography Anatomy Herbary and almost all the Theory of Physick The Imagination hath Eloquence Poetry Musick Architecture Geodaesie Fortifications most partâ— of the Mathematiques and all the Arts whose works depend only on the force of the Imagination The Judgment hath Philosophy Scholastical Divinity the Practice of Physick and Law and all the Sciences which depend on soundness of reasoning Nevertheless because it seems that the Judgment cannot judg to its own advantage without injustice being both Judg and Party 't is best to arbitrate in this sort and say That the excellence and necessity of things being considered or so far as they are for our profit or that of others for our own profit 't is best to have a good Judgment and less of Memory or Imagination For the Imagination serves more for Invention and this to ruine its Author when it is destitute of Judgment Memory to make a man admir'd and Judgment for conduct and government The Second said Since the Imagination gives the rise to all the motions of the Soul by the Species which it supplies to it wherewith it forms the Passions in the Inferior Appetites Desires in the Reasonable Appetite
virtues of penetrating inciding opening attenuating provoking Urine and Sweat cleansing the Reins and Bladder all ffects of heat Others account them cold because being drunk they cause shivering at Midsummer correct the heat of the Liver and Reins cure hot Diseases prejudice cold and generally hurt the Nervous Parts to which according to the Aphorism Heat is friendly and Cold hurtful But though actually cold yet they have some have some heat in power and being compos'd of several unlike parts produce different and sometimes contrary effects So Aloes and Rhubarb both loosen and bind All which effects may nevertheless be referr'd to three principal namely Refrigerating Deoppilating or opening and Strengthning They refrigerate by their actual coldness and the acidity of Vitriol which also by vellicating the stomach causes the great appetite we have during the the use of these Waters They deoppilate not so much by their quantity which hath made some erroneously say that the same proportion of common Water would work the same effect as these Medicinal Waters as by their tenuity which they have from the metalline Spirits which make them penetrate and pass speedily over the whole Body Lastly they strengthen by their astringency for all Astringents corroborate which the Chymists attribute to their volatil Spirits which as they say joyn themselves to the fix'd Spirits of our Bodies The Fourth said That the three conditions of a good Medicament are To Cure Speedily Safely and Pleasantly as Mineral Waters do They are familiar to us by their nature of Water Medicaments by their composition which is discover'd either by letting them settle or by evaporating or by distilling them as also by the smell taste and colour which becoming black by the infusion of Galls shews that there is Vitriol in them And whereas the longest and most difficult Maladies proceed from obstruction and cold the hot or acute being speedily terminated these Waters are the most effectual Remedy of both for they penetrate and like a torrent open not the great passages only but also the small veins of the Mesentery and heat by their Spirits and Sulphur which hath a heat very benign and friendly to the principal parts especially to the Lungs whereunto it is a Balsom and Specifical Above all they are admirable in curing Gravel not only vacuating the gross and viscous humours which are the matter of the Stone but sometimes breaking and dissolving the Stone in the Kidneys and Bladder which amongst others those of Spà perform by reason of their abounding in Vitriol whose acidity and acrimony produces the same effect upon Stones in the Body as that of Vinegar doth upon Egg-shells Pearls and Corals The Fifth said That the use of Natural Baths whether hot or cold may be easily practised in sundry Diseases but 't is important to discern the occasions of taking them by the mouth and their differences For besides that their great quantity the Italians prescribing above 200 ounces a day others 25 pound sometimes overcomes the strength and extinguishes the natural heat some have malignant Qualities and Enemies to the principles of Life not so much by reason of their Metalline Spirits disproportionate to our Bodies as of the mixture of Mercury Plaster and other Earths entring into their Composition whence many die by taking the Waters or come back from them more infirm by accidents following upon them as Gowts weakness of Stomach Imbecillity Lassitude Livid Complexion Dropsie and other more dangerous Evils than that for which they were recurr'd to The sixth said To the end the use of these waters may prove healthful regard is to be had to the Persons the Diseases and the Nature of the waters As for the first Children old Men breeding Women and fat People must not take them without great necessity For the second Most waters are unprofitable and sometimes contrary to the disease as to the infirmities of the Breast Fluxions Ulcers of the Lungs Epilepsie Apoplexie Convulsions cold Maladies and all others of the Brain and nervous Parts If there happen a complication of Diseases some of which require others reject the use of the Waters regard must be had to the most urgent and dangerous They have not always the same effect either because they are corrupted by Rain or vehement Heat consumes their subtilest Spirits in which their chief virtue resides which likewise depend on the Quality Quantity Time Place and Manner wherein they are to be us'd For they must be taken in the Morning fasting in a hot and dry Season as well because they are then purest and leightest as because the Body better supports that quantity of cold Water which relieves its natural Faculties languishing in great heat and if it may be they must be taken at the Spring the Spirits being easily dissipated by transportation The Quantity and Time of taking them are not to be measur'd by the number of Glasses or Days but proportionated to the Disease and its Causes the diseas'd Parts the Age Temper Custom and other Signs from which Physitians take their Indications Which Conditions being well observ'd it may be said God hath not given Men any thing more profitable than these Medicinal Waters temper'd by Nature her self who makes us a free present of them their disproportion with our Bodies being the cause of their action upon them otherwise we should turn them into our substance as we do Plants and Animals the bad successes which happen by them being much more rare than those of any other Medicaments although the most rebellious Diseases are commonly remitted to them Upon the Second Point it was said That the straight connexion between all the parts of the Universe makes this Question hard to be judg'd since they give nothing but what they receiv'd before For our common Mother the Earth receives her fruitfulness from the impressions of the Air the Air from the influence of the Stars these their light and power from the Sun and he his from his Maker Which the Platonists represent to us by the mutual embraces of Porus and Penia the one the God of Plenty which is the original of Gifts the other the Goddess of Necessity which is the cause of Receiving to shew that they necessarily follow one the other And as in Nature the attenuated and rarifi'd Parts strongly attract the next for hindring vacuity and the full reject what is superfluous so in Morality we may say That Giving and Receiving are equally good and natural not differing but in certain terms and respects otherwise a Man might be said more or less excellent or happy than himself there being no Person but hath need to Receive and power to Give at the same time out of the Plenty or Necessity which he hath of something For should he be stor'd with whatever he could wish Might not we ask him as S. Paul doth What hast thou that thou hast not receiv'd So then 't is Reception that hath put him into this happy state and if there be
resolves what is to be done So Man by his Senses discovers the nature of Objects as by so many Spies which make their report to the Imagination after which the Understanding judges of the same and lastly the Man resolves and determines by his Will Thus 't is the Man that makes all this progress employing all his Faculties diversly for that purpose And as 't were impertinent to ask how the Scouts and Council of War acted and mov'd the Troops which execute the General 's resolution to make them fight but it suffices to say That 't is his Order So 't is absurd to inquire how the Senses or Understanding move the Appetite or the Will 't is sufficient to say That a Man resolves to will after cognisance of the matter The Fifth said That that which moves the Will is something divine and more excellent then Reason namely that part of the Intellect which is the knowledg of First Principles and is to the Soul what she is to the Body which she informs This appears in all the Will 's actions whereof those that tend to the End are to Will to Desire to Enjoy when the said End is a Good and is either absent or present not to Will to Flee to be Sad when the said End is an Evil and that consider'd too either as absent or present those which respect the means leading to such End are To Chuse to Consent and to Employ some rather then others All which actions it cannot exert of it self but being mov'd by that divine power of the Intellect which represents to it the goodness of the End and the sutableness of the Means for attaining the same in like manner as the End moves the efficient Cause attracting it to its prosecution by an improper and metaphorical Motion The Sixth said As the Will is mov'd by the Intellect so is the Intellect mov'd reciprocally by the Will which commands it to divide define abstract and perform its operations in such and such manner Yea there is no Faculty but is subject to its empire It commands the Imagination to frame Idea's and Species the Memory to recall and represent them the Motive Faculty to speak walk and the like other actions the Sensitive Appetite to love hate be angry to raise and appease its passions though many times these are deaf to its dictats The Seventh said Since the Rational Soul is a simple Form and every Form a perfection of the subject wherein it resides that of Man being to know Truth to love Good and to be united to both by Fruition the same Soul when it knows is call'd the Intellect when it desires or loves the thing known the Will So that there is no need for the one to be mov'd by the other for 't is the Soul that moves it self which therefore Aristotle calls Entelechia and the Principle of motion the Pythagoreans a Self-moving number The Eighth said That the Will depends not any way on the Intellect and consequently is not mov'd by it Which is prov'd first because the Will is mutable and oftimes contrary upon the same ratiocination as it would not be if it were mov'd by the Understanding For if the Will were according to Aristotles definition a desire of good with reason the one ought always to follow the other But it not doing so 't is an argument that the Will hath another principle then the ratiocination In the second place as it was lately argu'd there are amities of Inclination properly so call'd because not grounded upon any Reason and therefore the Will which never exercises its dominion more freely then in Love follows not the Intellect in that kind of amities and consequently is not mov'd by it Thirdly whatever the Civilians say Fools and Children have their Wills as well as the Wiser and Elder yea both the former Will as resolvedly as the latter and Women who we say have less judgment then Men are yet more self-will'd and obstinate then they On the contrary the most judicious are commonly the least resolute and find most difficulties in willing An Emperick and ignorant Physician will be bolder and resolve things more pertinaciously then an old experienc'd Methodist A young and giddy Captain will sooner tell his opinion which is the issue of his Will then an old beaten Souldier who doubts of every thing and labours much to bring himself to a resolution But the contrary would happen if the Will follow'd the Duct of the Judgment Wherefore I conceive rather that the Will moves the Understanding as well as all the other Faculties since no body can reason inspite of himself but he must will to set his Mind upon a thing before the Intellect can make its reviews The Ninth said The best course was rather to salve the Opinions of the School by some Expedient then wholly to depart from them as a way too difficult to keep and that he conceiv'd it better to untye the Gordian knot then to cut it which belongs only to Alexander 'T is acknowledg'd that the Intellect and the Will are two Faculties of the Rational Soul that we will nothing unless the judgment believe it good whether it be really or only apparently such But the difficulty is concerning the means that the Intellect employs to carry the Will to such good Take it thus The Will is carri'd of it self to good as a Stone to the Centre but as this Stone is sometimes hinder'd from arriving thereunto by obstacles which stay it so Ignorance puts a bar to the Will Hereupon the Understanding falls to work till it have remov'd that obstacle by its reasoning Which done as there is nothing between the end of a shadow and the beginning of light so there is nothing between the end of our ignorance and the beginning of our volition where the operation of the Understanding ends there begins that of the Will no more induc'd mov'd and as little forc'd as the weight that tends downwards which cannot be said carri'd towards the Centre unless improperly by him that takes away the piece of wood or other obstacle that stop'd it in the Air. Moreover it were no longer a Will if mov'd by any other principle but it self As is seen in those who having a will to do somthing when the same is once commanded them change their resolution or do only with regret what before they desir'd with passion as the same motion which was natural to the Stone becomes violent to it when it is impell'd instead of being suffer'd to descend downwards CONFERENCE CXXI Whence come the Marks or Spots wherewith Children are born AS the Degrees of Life have dominion over the First Qualities so they have authority one over another each in his order The Vegetative life in Man makes use of the Elementary Qualities at pleasure even to the prejudice of their own Nature So Heat congregates things of the same and separates those of different Nature but our Vegetative Soul makes it do the
obnoxious to external causes which produce diseases On the other side if Animals are happy 't is as Fools are whose minds are quiet by reason of their ignorance and insensibility But as it is better to be sensible then insensible even upon the condition of enduring pain sometimes so it is more happy to have a rational mind though it causes troubles to us sometimes then to have none Moreover we cannot avoid the stroaks of fortune otherwise then those of Thunder namely by being very high or very low but 't is better to be above tempests then below them and to be incapable of them by reason as a wise man then by stupidity as a beast CONFERENCE CXXX Whether is better that Men have many Wives or Women many Husbands THough plurality of Wives or Husbands be disallowed by the Christian Law yet not being contrary to the Law of Nations for many admit it nor of nature during which it was in use we may be permitted to doubt whether supposing Polygamy it were better one Husband should have many Wives or one Wife many Husbands There are examples of both Plurality of Wives was practised by Lamech who first had two by Abraham Jacob and the Patriarchs for multiplying of their Lineage afterwards by David and Solomon who had 700 Wives and 300 Concubins and at present 't is in use among the Turks who are permitted to have as many Wives as they can keep As for plurality of Husbands though it be not now in use yet it was sometimes amongst the Amazons who made use of Men only as Stallions as also amongst the Medes and Persians where it was a shame for a Woman to have less then five Husbands And by the report of Caesar in his Commentaries the Women of great Britain had no less then ten or twelve Husbands a piece Nevertheless this plurality of Husbands is somthing against the Law of Nature according to which the Male as the most perfect is the head and master of the Woman and as 't is a monstrous thing for a body to have many heads so 't is for a Woman to have many Husbands besides that they hinder production of Children for we see publick Women are barren and on the contrary plurality of Wives is the cause of much issue Wherefore 't is more expedient in a State whose chief strength consists in the number of men that one Husband have many Wives then one Wife many Husbands The second said Though men abusing the power and authority of Laws to their own advantage have oftner married more Wives then they have permitted them to have more Husbands yet the women have as much reason of complaint in this point as in any other establish'd to their prejudice without their being heard or summon'd Their vehement and irregular appetite after man of which the irregular motions of that Animal in Animali are most certain evidences seems to conclude in their favour For Woman alone of all Animals desires the Male at all times even after conception She the Fire the Sea and Death never say 't is enough as the matter hath a continual appetite of Forms so hath she of the Male which desire being natural ought to be satisfi'd otherwise it were in vain but nothing is so in Nature and therefore she ought to be permitted more Husbands since one alone is more apt to irritate then satiate her She is able and hath wherewith to satisfie them but if one man cannot suffice one woman how can he acquit himself towards a dozen Especially in this age wherein no doubt women would appeal from the constitution of Solon who would have men live with their wives only thrice a moneth as well as from that foolish custom of Cato who never visited his but when it rain'd Lycurgus was much better advis'd when he permitted old or otherwise impotent persons to chuse out the handsomest young men to lye with their wives This Sage Legislator well judging that they would of themselves take this liberty and therefore 't was better to grant it them that so they might be quit of the vice and blame attending this action when prohibited The Third said That the decision of this Question the very report of which sometimes put the Roman Dames into an aproar being of very great consequence to both parties 't is requisite to observe so much equity therein that the Women have no ground of exception though to speak truth I know not which would be most to their advantage whether to have more Husbands who would be so many Masters and Tyrants or to share with other Women the Caresses of one alone the first being contrary to their haughty humour and the second to their jealousie Besides the plurality of Husbands would hinder not only the propagation but also the education of Children for none would take care of the Children which were not his own and though they were he would not believe they belong'd to him It would be impossible for a Father to know his own Child the term of Child-bearing being no more certain testimony then the resemblance of Physiognomy Moreover whether the Wife were hated or loved by her Husbands she would be displeas'd to see all her Rivals in bad intelligence or the effects of their common hatred However being unable to please all by reason of the diversity of their humours she could not avoid the disgust of some of them As for that impure pleasure 't is too shameful to be brought into the account besides that the frequency of it would take away its sweetness no pleasures of life being such but upon the score of their rarity The Fourth said They that fear the multitude of Husbands would hinder conception and consequently generation by the confusion of several Seeds know not how either is effected since Physitians affirm with Hippocrates That the Womb no sooner receives the fruitful Seed but it shuts it self up to embrace the same straitly as the Stomach does the Meat and that so exactly as not to admit a needles point so that it cannot open again to receive new Seed in a second Coition And though superfoetation happen sometimes yet 't is very rare and is incident to a Woman that lies with the same Man several times as well as to one that lies with many The other Inconvenience of the incertainty of Issues and consequently of Successions is as little considerable for Man being not born for himself but for the State whereof he is a Member and Children less belonging to their Parents then to the Commonwealth whereof they are the Nursery 'twere more expedient that they were bred and instructed like those brave Lacedemonians at the publick charge than of their Parents whose tenderness and too great indulgence is oft-times the cause of their evil education Moreover this was the design of that Divine Commonwealth of Plato who would have not only other Goods but Wives and Children also common that so those ungrateful words of Mine and Thine which
are the cause of all Mischiefs might be taken away For by this means that importunate solicitude of Appropriation and Jealousie which oftentimes afflicts both parties would be no longer any thing but a phantasm Women would find their satisfaction in the plurality of Husbands these how many soever to one woman having always enough and more then they needed and the woman being cunning enough to divide her favours so that all her Husbands might be contented who besides dividing the burden of domestick cares would have an easier task by having the more Associates But especially 't would be much for the womans interest for if she be belov'd by all her Husbands 't will be unspeakable happiness to her if hated by any the caresses of some will make her amends for the bad usage of others whereas finding no remedy in that Gordian knot which tyes her to one person she abandons her self to despair insomuch that in the time of Spurius Carvilius seventy women accus'd one another to the Senate of having poyson'd their Husbands But if she be constrain'd to share the caresses of one Husband with a douzen rivals there will be nothing but perpetual feuds envies and jealousies Witness Leah and Rachel who though holy women yet daily contested for the possession of their common Husband Jacob. And the Scripture observes that Leah who was blear-ey'd was constrain'd to purchase of the fair Rachel with mandrakes the liberty of lying one night with Jacob. The 5th said That seeing a Woman is a hagger'd and indocible animal Experience shewing us that one single man is not capable to reduce her to reason 't were more expedient to allow her many Husbands the reverence and aw of whom and in defect thereof their force might tame her pride and insolence which is risen to the highest pitch since the time that Justinian's Wife got the Law of Divorce repeal'd which ever before had been a Bridle upon them CONFERENCE CXXXI Of the manner of Accretion MOtion which is the mutation from one state to another is either simple or compound Simple is either of Quality is term'd Alteration or of Place and is call'd Lation or Motion Local Compound is either to Substance and is nam'd Generation which includes alteration and formation or to a greater Quantity which comprehends Local Motion with Accretion or Augmentation which cannot be made unless the parts extended change place This Accretion is an effect of one of the Faculties subservient to the Vegetative or Natural which are three the Generative the Auctive or Accretive and the Nutritive according to the three operations observ'd in living bodies which have parts generated nourishing and increasing for a thing must be generated before it can grow and acquire the perfection wherein it is maintain'd by Nutrition The Generative Faculty which is compounded of the Alterative and Formative regards the foetus in the womb The Auctive governs it from its birth till the twentieth or one and twentieth year which is the term of Accretion The Nutritive continues all the time of life which cannot subsist without nourishment because this repairs the continual dissipation of our substance caus'd by the action of heat upon humidity in which action Life it self consists Now though the body may be nourisht without growing yet it cannot grow unless it be nourisht For Accretion being an Extension of the parts in length and breadth new substance must be supply'd to fill up the place of that which is extended otherwise a living body should grow no more then a bladder doth when it is blown or a piece of leather when it is stretcht in the former what is gotten in capacity is lost in thickness and in the latter what is gotten in length is impair'd in breadth so that the augmentation of parts would be rather imaginary than real without supply of new matter to succeed that which is equally extended in all its dimensions amongst which nevertheless that of stature and of the solid parts as the bones is call'd Growth and not that which is made in thickness and the fleshy parts which are enlarged manytimes after the time of full growth The second said That all things being finite must have bounds of magnitude sutable to the use whereunto they are appointed which bounds are not determinate in inanimate bodies as Stones Metals Hair and Nails whose accretion being made by the bare apposition of matter they are augmented continually so long as there is accession of new matter to the former But in living bodies the same are regular for the accretion of these being internal and the work of the soul continues till the body hath attain'd the proportion and stature requisite to its functions To compass which Nature employs Heat as the Efficient Cause and Humidity as the Material Hence children grow most in their infancy because they are then most moist and men to a larger size then women because they have more heat Young men indeed have a more pungent and vigorous heat then Children but these are better stor'd as being nearer the principles of their generation and though it be not so active yet 't is more proper for the growth of the solid parts which being desiccated by a violent heat are not so extensible as when they are full of a fat and unctuous humidity But as for the manner of Accretion 't is almost the same with that of Nutrition The Aliment having been prepar'd in the Stomach and Liver and by this latter transmitted by the veins into all the parts of the body the purer particles of it sweat through the coats of the Vessels and fall like a gentle dew upon the parts which first imbibe then agglutinate and lastly assimilate the same So that Nutrition is nothing but Assimilation of the substance of the food to that of the living body and as Aliments nourish by resemblance of their Substance and by vertue of their Form so they cause augmentation by their Quantity and Matter which arriving at the solid parts as the Bones Cartilages and Ligaments causes the same to extend and grow in all dimensions but especially in height by reason that 't is proper to Heat to drive Humidity upwards And as when the Nutrition is equal to the Dissipation the body is only nourisht as in the Age of Consistence so when the Income of matter is greater than the Expence the surplusage meeting with a due heat causeth augmentation if it be less there follows wasting or diminution as is seen Old-Age The Third said As Animals are indu'd with a nobler degree of life than Plants so they vegetate after a more sublime manner and not only by bare heat and moisture For amongst Animals the Elephant a melancholy and consequently cold and dry beast is yet the greatest of the field the Crocodile though cold grows all its life and some Serpents have by long age attained to the length of sixty foot So amongst Trees Oaks though the dryest are the largest Of Bones the
prizes of the Commodity he intends to deal in Which hath gain'd great Credit to this Assembly by the printed Bills it hath sometimes sent abroad containing the currant prizes of all Wares for every week in imitation of the City of Amsterdam For by this means the Merchant needs only discount the charges of transportation and make a Reduction of Weights and Measures to see his evident profit yet alwayes carefully observing to draw a line with some imaginary summ for hazards and contingences which may happen unexpectedly it being impossible what-ever care be us'd to regulate exactly the gain of Merchandize as depending partly on Chance and partly on the Will and Phansie of Men so that a Commodity which for being to day in fashion or otherwise in credit would yield twenty in the hundred profit to the Owner sometimes leaves him a loser or he is forc'd to keep it long in his Ware-house CONFERENCE CLXXIX What are the most common Causes of Law-suits and why they are more now than heretofore PLato designing a Common-wealth whose Citizens might live in good intelligence justly excludes out of it the words of Mine and Thine conceiving that so long as there was any thing to be divided there would ever be Male-contents because Self-love the root from whence the too great desire of keeping and acquiring arises acts variously in Men by main force and strong hand in time of War and in Peace by Law-suits Now the desire of Getting having never been so great as at this day nor so much countenanc'd and rewarded since in consideration of wealth most Offices are dispos'd of 't is no wonder if Law-suits be more numerous at this day than in times past The Second said That Community of Goods feign'd by the Poets and exemplifi'd in the Primitive Church bating the Charity which produc'd it would cause as many mischiefs and consequently Law-suits as there are at present For every one would endeavour to appropriate what should be common and despise it if not able to compass it as we see common Causes are neglected and commonly lost for private interest Whence appears the impertinence of some Legislators and of the Nicolaitans who that the Children might be lov'd the more would have Wives common for common Wives and Children would be own'd by no Body and if such Women as belong but to two or three keep them alwayes in jealousie and many times ingage them in a Law-suit what would those do that belong'd to all the world Wherefore I conceive that if contrary Effects have contrary Causes 't is Plenty and its Daughter Pride that causeth Law-suits and Poverty and Humility makes Peace and Agreements Which the French Democritus intimates where he introduces an old man reconciling two Adversaries but 't is after they are both undone Thus also the Circle of Humane Life represents Labour holding Wealth by the Hand Wealth holding Pride Pride holding Contention which causeth Poverty this Humility which again produces Labour that Wealth and so round again For of fifty Law-suits not one would begin between the parties or at least it would soon be determin'd if either would humble themselves as much one to the other as they do to their Judges yea oftentimes to their Council Wherefore Vanity being greater in this Age than ever it was although with less reason in most 't is no wonder if our times abound more with Law-suits than the former The Third said That such as are at their ease have no mind to Law-suits and therefore 't is not Plenty that begets them but Necessity yet not an absolute one for he that hath nothing cannot go to Law but such that the one cannot pay what he owes and the other cannot be without it In every other Case Accommodements are possible 'T is from this Source that so many Seisures and Sentences proceed which the indebted would never suffer had they wherewithall to pay considering that the whole charges must fall upon themselves Now as there were never so many rich so there were never so many poor as there are at this day in France because every body labours out of the vanity above-mention'd to disable themselves every day more and more laughing at the Constitutions which are made to reduce us to frugality and ascribing all inconveniences both publick and private to any other Cause but themselves The Fourth said That though the Ages past having had the same vicissitudes of Peace and War and of Poverty and Riches yet had they not so many Law-suits as there are at present and therefore some other Cause thereof must be sought which possibly is this That the Spirits of Men are become more refin'd and subtle in the several Ages of the world and consequently advanc'd to a higher pitch of maliciousness whence many difficulties and contest arise in such matters wherein the goodness and simplicity of our Ancestors found none at all Nor hath the multitude and diversity of Laws been a small occasion of this bad event For besides the Roman Laws which lay long in oblivion and were restor'd to light by Veruher in the year 1127. and the Canons compil'd by Gratian whence came the judicial formalities our Customs and our Ordinances and amongst others those made since Charls VIII with long preambles and reasonings in imitation of Justinian have stirr'd up more Law-suits than there were in a thousand years before So that hath been good work for such as were minded to draw profit thereby to make so confus'd and intricate an Art of the Law that there is almost no Case wherein they cannot find some trick to multiply a Suit and render it immortal Moral Reason the foundation of the Law admits a thousand different faces not only in circumstances of Fact but also in matter of Law whence there are few Laws but have their contraries The Fifth said That the multiplicity of our Law-suits is to be attributed to the humor of the French Nation which is desirous of change and naturally subtle and eloquent Whence a Latine Poet stills France the Nurse of Lawyers Likewise the improvement of Learning in this last Age hath contributed much thereunto And the sight of great Estates gotten by the Law hath induc'd many Parents to put their Children to that profession as the readiest way to advancement Such as could not be Counsellors have been made Attornies Solliciters Sergeants and this great number of people employ their inventions to get a livelyhood which they cannot do without Law-suits And therefore 't is no wonder if they advise continue multiply and eternise them as much as they can egging on the Plaintiff by the motive of Profit and the Defendant by that of Self-preservation and refusing to the more simple their writings and other such helps as might bring them to accord The Sixth said That Law-suits increase or diminish according to the diversities of proportions kept in the Administration of Justice For some measure them by the Law of Nature whereby all Men are born equal and
former are compleatly form'd by the 30th day the latter not before the 40th the former move in the third moneth the latter not till the fourth those are born in the ninth moneth these some days after and besides live not if born in the seventh moneth as Males do whose periods are therefore reckon'd by Septenaries and those of Females by Novenaries After birth we see the actions of Males are perform'd with more strength and vigor then those of Females who are actually colder and suffer more inconveniences from cold They are never ambidexters because they have not heat enough to supply agility to both sides and their right side is peculiarly destinated to the Generation of Females because the Spermatick Vessel on that side derives blood from the hollow Vein which is hottest by reason of the proximity of that Vein to the Liver whereas the left Spermatick draws from the Emulgent which carrying Serose humors together with the Blood 't is no wonder if the Seed of that side be crude and cold and consequently fitter for generating Femals then Males Hence Hippocrates saith that if as Peasants tye a Bull 's left Testicle when they desire a Bull-calf and the right when a Cow-calf the same be practis'd by Man the like effect will follow Whereby 't is manifest that whatever makes the Seed more hot and vigorous both in Male and Female furthers the Generation of Males and contrarily and consequently that the Morning when 't is best concocted is more proper then the Evening for begetting Boys and the Winter then the Summer at least on the man's part The Second said That as to the production of Males rather then Females or on the contrary no certain cause hath hitherto been assign'd thereof since we see that the same man in all likelihood without alteration of his temper hath only Girles by his first Wife and only Boys by the second and on the contrary and some that could get no Children at all in their youth have had only Boys in their old Age. Others have Males first others Females and others have them alternatively Whereof no other reason can be assign'd by Chance or rather the Divine Pleasure alone in the impenetrable Secrets whereof to seek for a cause were high temerity If heat and strength caus'd the difference young marry'd people would not have Girles first as it happens most often and decrepit old men should never get Boys as daily experience shews they do Moreover some men depriv'd of one of their Testicles have nevertheless begotten both Sons and Daughters which could not be if the faculty of begetting Children of one determinate Sex were affix'd to either of those parts And as from a false Principle nothing can be drawn but false Consequences so also is it in the opinion of Aristotle That Woman is but an occasional Creature For then Nature should produce far greater abundance of Males then of Females or else she would erre oftner then hit right which is inconsistent with her wisdom and yet in all places more Girles and Women are found then Men as appears in that we every where see plenty of Maids that want Husbands and in Countries wherein Polygamy is lawful there are Women enough to supply ten or a dozen Wives to each Man And indeed Nature's design is mainly for preserving the Species as that of every individual is to preserve it self and the bare degree of heat or cold in the Seed being but an accident of an accident cannot effect a formal change in the substance Only defective heat may occasion an effeminate man and abundant heat a Virago Besides this Opinion destroys the common and true one viz. That Generation is one of those actions which proceeds from a just proportion and temperature of the humors whence excessive or feverish heat destroys the Seed in stead of furthering Generation and is an enemy to all the other functions Wherefore 't is best to say that the same difference which is observ'd between the Seeds of Plants is also found in that of Animals though not discernable therein but by the effects and as the exactest prying cannot observe in the kernel of an Almond or Pine any difference of the Trunk Leaves and Fruit of those Trees although these parts be potentially contain'd therein so also the Seed of an Animal contains in it self even the least differences of Sex albeit imperceptibly to the eye Which the Rabbins being unable otherwise to comprehend conceiv'd that our first Parent was created an Hermaphrodite because both Sexes came from him his own and that of Eve The Third said That the sole ignorance of things occasions the ascribing of them to Chance which hath no power over the wise because they understand the reasons thereof As for universal causes as the Divine is they concur indeed with particular ones but as they are becoming in the mouths of Divines and of the Vulgar so Naturalists must not stop there since by the right use of external causes the internal may be corrected by which correction not only Seeds formerly barren or which fell in an ingrateful soil are reduc'd to a better temper and render'd prolifick but such as were destinated to a female production through defect of heat are render'd more vigorous and fit to generate Males Now that young married people hit not sometimes upon this latter Sex 't is because of their frequent debauchery which cools the Brain and consequently the whole habit of the Body Which happens not so frequently to men of more advanc'd age who use all things more moderately The Fourth attributed the cause to the Constellations and Influences of the Stars which reign at the time of Conception Males being generated under Masculine and Females under Feminine Signs CONFERENCE CLXXXVI Whether the French Tongue be sufficient for learning all the Sciences A Language is a Multitude or Mass of Nouns and Verbs which are signs of Things and Times destinated to the explication of our thoughts There are two sorts the one perfect call'd Mother-Languages the other imperfect The Mother-Languages are the Hebrew Greek and Latine the imperfect those which depend upon them Now the French being of this latter sort we cannot learn the Sciences by it alone because being particular and the Sciences general the less is not capable to comprehend the greater Moreover our Language being not certain in its Phrases nor yet in its Words not only Ages but also a few Years changing both whereas the Sciences are certain and immutable it will follow that they cannot be taught by it Besides there may be Inventions for which our Language hath no expression or at least not so good as others and to busie our minds in the search of words is more likely to retard the mind in the acquisition of Sciences then to further it The truth is 't were well if things were generally express'd by the most proper and significant words but they are not so in any Language much less in the French
think 't is from some hideous Phantasms irregularly conceiv'd in the Brain as a Mola or a Monster is in the womb which Phantasms arising from a black humor cause Sadness and Fear a Passion easily communicable because conformable to the Nature of Man who consisting of a material and heavy Body hath more affinity with the Passions that deject him as Fear doth than with those which elevate him as Hope and Ambition do The moral cause of Panick Terror is Ignorance which clouds and darkens the light of the Soul whence the most ignorant as Children and Women are most subject to this Fear and Souldiers who are the more ignorant sort being taken out of the Country and from the dregs of the people become easily surpriz'd with it and by the proneness of Men to imitation upon the least beginning it finds a great accession and familiarity in Humane Nature The Fifth said That the cause of this Terror may be a natural prescience our Souls have of the evil which is to befall us which is more manifest in some than in others as appear'd in Socrates who was advertis'd of what-ever important thing was to befall him by his familiar Spirit or good Angel Now if there be any time wherein those Spirits have liberty to do this 't is when we are near our End our Souls being then half unloos'd from the Body as it comes to pass also at the commencement of a battel through the transport every one suffers when he sees himself ready either to die or overcome CONFERENCE CCI. Of the Water-drinker of Germain's Fair. THis Person is of a middle Stature hath a large Breast as also a Face especially his Fore-head very great Eyes and is said to be sixty years old though he appears to be but about forty He was born in the Town of Nota in the Island of Maltha and is nam'd Blaise Manfrede They that have observ'd him in private Houses and upon the Theatre relate that he makes his experiment not only every day but oftentimes twice in one afternoon Moreover vomiting so freely as he does he is always hungry when he pleases His Practise is very disagreeing from his publish'd Tickets wherein he promises to drink a hundred quarts of water but he never drinks four without returning it up again His manner is thus He causes a pail full of warm water and fifteen or twenty little glasses with very large mouths to be brought to him then he drinks two or three of these glasses full of water having first washt his mouth to shew that there is nothing between his teeth Afterwards for about half a quarter of an hour he talks in Italian which time being pass'd he drinks three or four and twenty more of the said glasses and thereupon spouts forth of his mouth with violence a red water which seems to be wine but hath only the colour of it This water appears red as it comes out of his mouth and yet when it is spouted into two of his glasses it becomes of a deep red in one and of a pale red in the other and changing the situation of his glasses on the left side of his mouth to the right and of those on the right to the left these colours always appear different in the same glass namely the one of a deep red and the other yellow or Citron-color Some of the water is of the color of pall'd wine and the more he vomits the clearer and less colour'd the water is He hath often promis'd to bring up Oyl and Milk but I never saw nor heard that he did it This done he sets his glasses to the number of fifteen or sixteen upon a form or bench to be seen by every one After which he drinks more water in other glasses and brings it up again either clear water or Orenge flower water or Rose-water and lastly Aqua Vitae which are manifest by the smell and by the burning of the Aqua Vitae having been observ'd to keep this order always in the ejection of his liquors that red water comes up first and Aqua Vitae last He performs this Trick with thirty or forty half glasses of water which cannot amount to above four quarts at most then having signifi'd to the people that his Stomack although no Muscle which is the instrument of voluntary motion obeys him he casts the same water up into the Air with its natural colour so impetuously that it imitates the Casts of water in Gardens to the great admiration of the Spectators who for six weâ—ks together were seldom fewer than three hundred daily For my part I find much to admire in this action For though men's Stomacks be of different capacities and some one person can eat and drink as much as four others yet I see not possibly where this fellow should lodge so much water And again he seems rather to powr water into a Tun than to swallow it though the conformation of the Gullet doth not consist with such deglutition Besides vomiting is a violent action and yet most facile in this Drinker And as to the order of this Evacuation 't is certain that all things put into the Stomack are confounded together therein so that Concoction begins by Mixtion and yet this fellow brings up what-ever he pleases as 't were out of several vessels so that he undertakes to eat a Sallad of several sorts of Herbs and Flowers and to bring them up all again in order Moreover what can be more prodigious than this mutation of Colours Smells and Substances And indeed they say he hath sometimes fear'd to be question'd for Sorcery But the greatest wonder is that smartness and violence wherewith he spouts out water from his Stomack not laterally which is the ordinary manner of vomiting but upwards which is a motion contrary to heavie bodies as water is Some speculative person that had read in Saint Augustin that a Man's being turn'd into a Horse by the power of Imagination might refer the cause of all these wonders to that faculty which daily producing new shapes upon the Bodies of Children in their Mothers womb may with less strangeness produce in this Man the above-mention'd alteration of one colour into another And as for his facility of bringing up what-ever he hath swallow'd I can find no better Reason for it than Custom which in him is turn'd into Nature The Second said That Ignorance being the Mother of Admiration we begin less to admire as we proceed to more Knowledg Now if this Maltese were a Magician he would do more marvellous things and of more than one sort whereas all his power is confin'd only to the vomiting up of liquors which he drunk before and the faculty of his Stomack being determin'd to this single kind of action the same must be natural because that is the definition of natural powers Moreover no action ought to be accus'd of Magick till good Reasons have evinc'd it to surpass all the powers of Nature
soft wax a man may easily imprint what he pleases should rather be acquainted with History which by reason of its variety and truth would be equally delightful but much more advantageous And indeed those who make use of Fables thinking by them to teach truth take a very preposterous way to do it For all the advantage which may be deriv'd from Fables is only to draw on mens minds with greater delight to the knowledge of true things and it is easily found to be a way as unlikely to prevail as if a man should make use of some place infamous and notorious for lewdness as a School wherein he should read Lectures of Chastity to young Men and Maids or lodge a Fuller or Whitener of Cloth with the Collier one soyling all that the other had cleans'd The second said that Man's understanding hâ—ving its distasts and humoursomness as well as his body and Content being equally requisite for the sustenance of both in regard that a coarser dish of meat taken with a good stomack is preferr'd before better chear forc'd down against Appetite it is but necessary that the same remedies should be used to recreate our minds when they are wearied and out of humour with an over-earnestness of study as are us'd to retrive and sharpen the languishing appetite This latter is recover'd by feeding on some dish excellently well-order'd such as by its haut-gousts and picquancy will rather excite then satisfie the Appetite Such is the bitterness of the Olive Vinegar in Sallets and the like which have the same effect as the stepping back of such as leap or the appearance of a Fly on a face of an exquisitely fair complexion These Fables are invented to reduce the wandring and wearied Understanding to its former interrupted pursuance of Truth There are two kinds of them One may be called a simple Fiction such as are old Wives Tales which deserve not the name of fabulous Relations unless it be upon the account of their absurdity and yet it ought to be season'd with something that is miraculous and delightful The other is Mythological which may be divided into four kinds First the Poëtical in one continu'd Relation such as are the Metamorphoses of Ovid or Drammatick and accommodated to Persons such as as are Comedies and Tragedies Secondly the Emblem or Device which is a real explication of some feigned thing painted or otherwise represented Thirdly the Apologue such as are the Fables of Aesop and these are divided into three sorts the Moral the Rational and the Mixt. The Moral are those wherein irrational things are introduc'd such as is the Fable of the two Pots the earthen and the brazen or that of the distribution of the prey between the Lyon the Ass and the Fox The Rational are only of Men such as is that of the Satyr and his Entertainer whom he leaves because he blew hot and cold out of the same mouth Of the Mixt we have an example in the Fable of the Fowler and the Stork taken in the net with the Cranes The fourth kind is the Romance The benefit and advantage of all which kinds of Fable is notorious to all For besides that they comprehend that common recreation which is opposite to the conflict of Mind and serious occupation produc'd by the reading of Histories the Poetical kind of Fable I mean that of the continu'd Relation where the Poet speaks alone does make extraordinary discoveries of the old Pagan Antiquities whereof a man cannot be ignorant without a great defect The Dramatick where Persons are introduc'd speaking when it is represented by good Actors makes a prevalent impression on the minds of the Spectators and Auditors and hath nothing comparable to the other kinds of writing and expressing so that it is the most efficacious instrument to move and work upon the Passions There may also be very great advantages made of the other fore-mentioned kinds of Fable especially of the Romance which hath the same effect on our minds in order to their instruction in goodness and vertue as well-proportion'd Pictures have to teach us the art of Drawing For as there are not to be seen now any Pictures comparable in point of body to that of the so much celebrated Venus which consisted of whatever was handsom in any Woman or Maid and borrow'd the hair of one the complexion of another the neck of a third and the breast and other members of others so is it impossible that History should ever come up to the noble height and delight of the Romance For History though it be not absolutely true yet being oblig'd to represent things past with as much likeness as a picture is taken according to the face of him who is to be drawn the consequence of that obligation is that however it may embellish things and actions yet is it still engag'd to expose them to the eye of the Reader as they are or at least as they are conceiv'd to be Now the number of unjust things much exceeds that of the just and consequently the bad and sad examples will much shorten the Reader 's delight Whence it follows that History wants those two principal ends for which it ought to be sought after to wit content and advantage whereas the Romance brings both along with it as being commonly full of the rewards obtain'd by vertue whereof one is that a sincere and constant Love should at last be crown'd with the greatest of worldly enjoyments and on the contrary there are not wanting the punishments and executions of lewd and vicious persons whereto add the strange variety of the accidents represented therein which being carried on with nobler and more unexpected intrigues extreamly heighten the satisfaction of the Reader The Third said That for any man to endeavour the discovery of Truth by its contrary to wit Fables is to look for light in the midst of darkness and as a certain Musician among the Ancients demanded a double reward for teaching those who had been instructed amiss in that Art for this reason as he said that there was a certain time requisite for the forgetting of what they already knew and as much for learning how to play well so that Child who shall have heard of the universal Deluge by the Fable of Deucalion and Pyrrha will find more difficulty to disengage his mind of those stones which they having cast behind them became men and women then he will have to imprint in it the natural Story of Noah and his Ark. The same thing may be said of all the other Fables out of which there is any truth to be deriv'd to wit that it is like the ordering of Crabs where there is much more to be picked away then there is to be eaten Nay the Romans themselves who seem to be more instructive may be reproach'd with this that they have not represented to their Readers the State of life and civil Conversation as it really is but have entertain'd them with
endeavour'd a more strict examination of the power of Nature have found the intermixture of these species a thing impossible not only in respect of the matter which was to receive the Soul whereto she is determinated by a certain proportion but also in respect of the form which is indivisible especially the Rational Soul Whence it comes that the Poet Lucretius speaks very learnedly and affirms that there cannot be any Centaurs whereof the reason is the same with that of Satyrs nay the Generation of Satyrs according to the reason alledged by him is much more impossible than that of Centaurs Because saith he if that intermixture of a Man's and Horse's nature were admitted and it be withall suppos'd that Horses are come to their full strength in three years at which period of time Children are hardly taken from their Nurses breasts how is it to be imagin'd that monstrous Animal should be in its beginning and vigour at the same time Besides a Horse being accounted old when Man enters into his youth how should the one come to dye when the other were arriving to his greatest vigour Now Goats being shorter-liv'd then Horses there is yet less likelihood of feigning an Animal consisting of a mixture of such a nature and Man's For which reason Pliny in Book 7. of his Natural History affirms that a Hippocentaur being foal'd in Thessaly died the very same day and for the continuation of the miracle was kept in hony which is acknowledg'd to be an excellent Balm and publickly expos'd to the view of all Virgil places them at the entrance of hell upon this reflection that such things as are contrary to Nature cannot subsist And St. Hierom in the Life of S. Paul the Hermit relating how a Centaur had appear'd to S. Anthony questions whether it were a real Centaur or the evil Spirit under such a form and in the prosecution of his discourse seems to conclude it a pure illusion of the Devils since he drove it away with the Sign of the Cross So that we are not to attribute these Satyrs to any thing but the licentiousness which the Poëts have always assum'd to themselves as well as the Painters to dare and undertake any thing without any regard to the rule given them by Horace not to make an intermixture and coincidence of strange and opposite nature and that Satyrs that is half-men half-goats were to be dispos'd among the Hydra's and Chimera's in as much as by them they would only represent men that were very active lascivious clownish and much inclin'd to railery and thence also the Satyrical Poëm came to have its denomination as being a composition or farce of a Kitchin whence some would have it to descend Which fiction is sufficiently justify'd by the divine Nature which they attributed to those Satyrical Animals and by the other fabulous stories of Pan whom they affirm to be the god of those Satyrs as also of the Shepherds We are therefore to make no other account of this invention then of all the other productions of their Imagination what root soever they may have taken in the minds of the Ancients in regard that being throughly examin'd it may be ranked among those senseless Old-wives tales wherewith they amuse little Children Unless we would rather refer these Satyrs to the illusion of Devils who assume their shapes to abuse silly Women And thence it is that they are by some called Incubi The second said that it was as dangerous for us to involve in impossibilities whatever we have not seen as to be over-credulous in believing all But when Reason and Authority which bring experience with them and assure us of a thing appear of any side our credulity may well be excus'd And this is the case in the question concerning Satyrs inasmuch as the concurrence of the seeds of those two species whereof they consist may as well produce them as the Mule is engendred of an Ass and a Mare Whereto may be added this as a general acknowledgment that Nature hath not omitted any thing of that which might compleat her power as having produc'd from Nothing even to the most excellent Beings whatever was to come into the mean between both Besides though the Imaginations of Mothers were not capable of all things and cannot imprint that figure and change of body on the Infant nay to make what they pleas'd of it whereof there are daily instances that sometimes they do yet the commonage of fields and forrests and such nourishment as the Children might have taken from Goats as well as Romulus and Remus did it from a She-Wolf might in process of time incline them to such or such a form Whereto it will signifie little to oppose the reason of Lucretius since it seems erroneous by what is commonly done in the ordering of Trees which are promiscuously engrafted in different kinds as for example an Apple-tree may be in a Cabbadge-staulk By which intermixture the Apples growing on such a Tree shall not only have a little scent of the Cabbadge but also that which is worse always prevailing over that which is better whereas the Apple-tree should last many years and the Cabbadg is but of one from these two extremities there arises a mean to wit a Tree which lives longer then a Cabbadge and not so long as an Apple-tree should Which thing is also to be observ'd ingraffing upon different kinds of Tree Thence it comes that S. Hierom in the life of St. Paul the Hermit speaking of the Centaur that appear'd to S. Anthony for it is true that the subsistance of one of these Monsters proves that of the other as the one being destroy'd the other cannot subsist does not affirm it to be a pure illusion but doubts whether it were a real Centaur such as those spoken of among the Ancients or a Devil that had assum'd that form But S. Anthony took him for a Man and not for a Devil whom he knew to be a Lyar since he ask'd him where the Servant of God whom he sought for lodged Whereto the Centaur reply'd but in a savage voice and such as could not be understood whereupon he drew near to S. Anthony and with his hand shew'd him the way he should go which done he ran away Whence Saint Hierom concludes that it is a hard matter to know Whether the Devil had not appear'd under that Figure to frighten that holy person or that the Desart fruitful in Monsters had produc'd that Beast And Plato in the Banquet of the Wise-men relates that a certain Shepherd having presented Periander with a Child brought forth at his house by a Mare having the Head Neck and Hands like those of a Man in all the other parts resembling a Horse and having the voice of a Child Diocles propos'd that such Prodigies were the fore-runners of Seditions and Distraction of mens minds Whereto Thales reply'd that it was a natural thing to prevent which for the future he advis'd him
whom he ravish'd with his Voice and Harp which was first instituted to honour the Gods The Indians perform'd their Worship by Dancing to Songs Cybele's Priests with Cymbals the Curetes with Drums and Trumpets the Romans sung Spondaick Verses whilst they offer'd their Sacrifices and David danc'd before the Ark all his Psalms being fitted to the Harp and other harmonious Instruments of that time And in this see what power Organs have to enflame the zeal of the devout and how melodious voices are with it so that the chief difference of Divine Service is in the Singing And as for publick or private Feasts and Ceremonies nothing renders them more compleat then Musick whence the Verse Convivii citharam quam Dii fecêre sodalem 'T was the custom to present a Lute to the Guests and to him that could not play a branch of Bayes which oblig'd him to a Song But above all the use of Musick is effectual in War whence the Spartans march'd to the sound of Flutes in a kinde of Dance to the end that by the motion of their Souldiers they might discern the valiant from the poltrons The Pythagoreans themselves were lull'd asleep with the Harp to appease the troubles of their minde In short Musick accompanies us to the Graves where people sing Elegies for the deceased Thus the Phoenicians added Flutes to their mournings and the Romans had their Siticines who sung at their Funerals For Musick excites both sadness and mirth And just as Physick either quiets or purges the humors of our bodies so doth Musick the Passions of the minde Plato conceiving that it was given to man not only to tickle his ears but also to maintain the Harmony of the Soul with the Body and to awake our sleeping vertues Thus of divers modes the Dorick makes prudent and chaste the Phrygian excites to War and Religion the Lydian abates pride and turns it into lamentations the Ionick excites to honest pleasures and recreations Hence Aegysthus could never corrupt the chastity of Clytemnestra Agamemnons Wife till he us'd the help of the Poet and Musician Demodocus and the Emperour Theodosius being ready to destroy the City of Antioch was diverted and wrought to mercy by the melodious Sonnets of little Children instructed thereunto by Flavianus their Bishop Yea the Prophet Elisha recommended this Art when he commanded a Harp to be played on before him and then Prophesi'd to Joram the overthrow of the Moabites And Michaia did the like in the presence of Ahab King of Samaria refusing to prophesie till one had played before him upon a Musical Instrument The relation of Saxo Grammaticus in the 12th Book of his Danish History concerning Henry the 2d King of Denmark who being told of the excellent Musick of the Violin desir'd to see the effects of it which were such that at first it put him into a deep melancholly and afterwards chearing him up again rais'd his spirit to such a degree of rage that he slew four of his Guard and at last it return'd him to his first temper serving onely to shew the excellence of Musick when it is rightly us'd The Second said That Musick effeminates mens courage whilst it sweetens like that of Wine taken to excess intoxicates them and transports them out of themselves which hurtful effect gave just cause to the fable of the Syrenes who allur'd Pilots by their melodious voices to split against the Rocks But above all it excites to filthy pleasures and blindes the eyes of the Understanding as Mercury did those of Argus And its great delectation through the dissipation of the Animal spirits which the sweetness of the sound attracts by the ear leaves us less refresht then wearied and incapable of setting about any serious matter It s easing the Sciatica as 't is reported is common to it with every thing that causes great attention whereby the spirits and with them the humors being suspended the fluxion must consequently cease and the Rabbins attribute the driving away Saul's evil spirit not to the Harmony alone of Davids Harp but to the vertue of the Characters of the Divine Name written upon it What did the Sybarites get by training their Horses to the Pipe but this that the Crotonians causing Minstrels to play at the joyning of a Battel render'd their Horses useless to the Fight because they did nothing but Dance Moreover Orpheus one of the most ancient Musicians was torn to pieces by women because he debauch'd their Husbands Whence also Antisthenes said that Ismenias was either a Fool or a bad Citizen because he could play so well upon the Flute and Philip was angry with Alexander for singing too well and Antigonns his Governour broke his Harp Therefore the Egyptians banish'd Musicians as corrupters of Youth and the Lacedemonians were so afraid lest they should grow into credit amongst them that they expelled Timotheus out of their City for adding a string to his Lute Aristotle also places this Art amongst the Ludicrous and blames Painters for representing the gods singing and playing upon Instruments whose goodliest effect is to break silence and waste time leaving no permanent action after it more then the play of Cards Dice and Tennis doth which last is much more profitable for health and is accounted as honourable to be perfectly skill'd in by persons of quality as 't is shameful to be an excellent Musician In fine we read not that our Lord ever Sung nor yet Adam in the state of Original Righteousness but one Jubal the first Bigamer and second Murderer of the world is said to have been the inventer of it CONFERENCE CLXXVII Whether Barrenness is most commonly tht fault of Husbands or of Wives AS Fruitfulness is a power whereby every living thing is able to produce its like so Barrenness is an impotence in it to re-produce is self by the way of Generation by means whereof mortal individuals acquire immortality in their Species to which purpose nature hath furnish'd every one with necessary Organs The generation of perfect Animals requires three things diversity of Sex matter or seed which flows from both Male and Female and contains in it self the Idea and Character of the parts from which it issues and lastly conjunction of both together without which nothing is produc'd And though the defect of Generation may be sometimes on the mans part as well as on the womans yet she is more subject to sterility which is an impotence proper to a woman who after the knowledge of a man in an age and time convenient cannot conceive For those that conceive not after the 50th year or before the 12th are not term'd barren Conceptions beyond the former or before the latter term being supernatural or extraordinary as those of the Manandri and Calingi and that of one mention'd by Savonarola whom he saw big with Childe at nine years of Age as also the miraculous conception of Elizabeth after she was seventy years old The cause of Barrenness is ascrib'd by