102

Departments of Knowledge to be so indicated

represented in this kalendar of sects of philosophy, as that of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into a harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane; and that of Tilesius, and his scholar Donius, being as a pastoral philosophy, full of sense, but of no great depth; and that of Fracastorius, who, though he pretended not to make any new philosophy, yet did use the absoluteness of his own sense upon the old; and that of Gilbertus our countryman, who revived, with some alterations and demonstrations, the opinions of Xenophanes: and any other worthy to be admitted. Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man's knowledge; that is radius directus, which is referred to nature, radius refractus, which is referred to God; and cannot report truly because of the inequality of the medium there resteth radius reflexus, whereby man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.

Human Philosophy, or the knowledge of ourselves.

:

IX. 1. We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of nature: and generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain. So we see Cicero the orator complained of Socrates and his school, that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an empty and verbal art. So we may see that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the phænomena, yet natural philosophy may correct. So we see also that the science of medicine if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical practice. With this reservation therefore we proceed to human philosophy or humanity, which hath two parts: the one considereth man segregate

6 In the Latin edition the fourth book commences here. Cf. Plat. Alcib. Prim. ii. 124.

8 De Orat. iii. 16, 17.

that its Unity be not broken.

103 or distributively; the other congregate, or in society. So as human philosophy is either simple and particular, or conjugate and civil. Humanity particular consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth; that is, of knowledges which respect the body, and of knowledges which respect the mind; but before we distribute so far, it is good to constitute. For I do take the consideration in general, and at large, of human nature to be fit to be emancipate and made a knowledge by itself: not so much in regard of those delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body, which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to

the sciences of either.

2. This knowledge hath two branches: for as all leagues and amities consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of mind and body hath these two parts; how the one discloseth the other, and how the one worketh upon the other; discovery and impression. The former of these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or prenotion; whereof the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other of Hippocrates." And although they have of later time been used to be coupled with superstitious and fantastical arts, yet being purged and restored to their true state, they have both of them a solid ground in nature, and a profitable use in life. The first is physiognomy, which discovereth the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body: the second is the exposition of natural dreams, which discovereth the state of the body by the imaginations of the mind. In the former of these I note a deficience. For Aristotle' hath very ingeniously and diligently handled the factures of the body, but not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by art, and of greater use and advantage. For the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose the present humour and state of the mind and will. For

In his work called Praenotiones.

1 See Aristotle's short treatise on physiognomy. It may perhaps be as well to remind the reader that the word physiognomy is not confined to the features of the countenance, as it is vulgarly used in the present day, but to the general outline of the body.

104

Value of an Inquiry into the reciprocal

as your majesty saith most aptly and elegantly, As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the gesture speaketh to the eye. And therefore a number of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions of men, do well know the advantage of this observation, as being most part of their ability; neither can it be denied, but that it is a great discovery of dissimulations, and a great direction in business.

3. The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or antistrophe that the former hath. For the consideration is double: either how, and how far the humours and affects of the body do alter or work upon the mind; or again, how and how far the passions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body. The former of these hath been inquired and considered as a part and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition. For the physician prescribeth cures of the mind in phrensies and melancholy passions; and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to confirm the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like: but the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regimen of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed. So likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict.2 Nay the faith itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastings, abstinences, and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and not figurative. The root and life of all which prescripts is, besides the ceremony, the consideration of that dependency which the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition of the body. And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught in easy instances, that the infant in the mother's womb is compatible with the mother and yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants and yet without subjection. As for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the body, we see all wise

2 Vid. Deut. c. xii.

Influences of the Body and Mind.

105

physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments to their patients, do ever consider accidentia animi as of great force to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more especially it is an inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant. For although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power to help; no more than a man can conclude, that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness. But the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, a Delian diver,3 being difficult and profound. But unto all this knowledge de communi vinculo, of the concordances between the mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary, which considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better inquired. For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised; but much less to be allowed. So then we have constituted, as in our own wish and advice, the inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be handled apart.

4

Of Arts con

cerning the

Body.

X. 1. The knowledge that concerneth man's body is divided as the good of man's body is divided, unto which it referreth. The good of man's body is of four kinds, health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the knowledges are medicine, or art of cure: art of decoration, which is called cosmetique; art of activity, which is called athletique; and art voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth eruditus luxus. This subject of man's body is of all other things in nature most susceptible of remedy; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error. For the same subtility of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing; and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more

exact.

3 Diog. Laert. ii. 22 (in Vit. Soc.) Socrates was speaking of a work of Heraclitus which Euripides had lent him.

4 Vid. Plat. Timae. iii. 69, seq.

5 Tac. Ann. xvi. 18.

106

Medicine an Art mainly empiric,

To speak therefore of Medicine, and to resume that we have said, ascending a little higher: the ancient opinion that man was microcosmus, an abstract or model of the world, hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found in man's body certain correspondences and parallels, which should have respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which are extant in the great world. But thus much is evidently true, that of all substances which nature hath produced, man's body is the most extremely compounded. For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold alterations, dressings, and preparations of the several bodies, before they come to be his food and aliment. Add hereunto, that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon their bodies: whereas man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations: and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of all other things is of the most compounded mass. The soul on the other side is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:

Purumque reliquit

Ethereum sensum atque auraï simplicis ignem.

So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco. But to the purpose: this variable composition of man's body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and therefore the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man's body and to reduce it to harmony. So then the subject being so variable, hath made the art by consequence more conjectural; and the art being conjectural hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture. For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts, or masterpieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; the master of the ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps the politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event; which

G Virg. Æn. vi. 747.

7 Vid. Ovid. Metam. i. 521.