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ally upon a camomile-alley; meaning, that he should put camomile within his socks. Likewise pigeons bleeding, applied to the soles of the feet, ease the head and soporiferous medicines applied unto them, provoke sleep.

97. It seemeth, that as the feet have a sympathy with the head, so the wrists and hands have a sympathy with the heart; we see the affects and passions of the heart and spirits are notably disclosed by the pulse and it is often tried, that juices of stock-gilly-flowers, rose-campian, garlick, and other things, applied to the wrists, and renewed, have cured long agues. And I conceive, that washing with certain liquors the palms of the hands doth 1 much good: and they do well in heats of agues, to hold in the hands eggs of alabaster and balls of crystal.

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Of these things we shall speak more, when we handle the title of sympathy and antipathy in the proper place.

Experiment solitary touching the secret processes of nature.

98. THE knowledge of man hitherto hath been determined by the view or sight; so that whatsoever is invisible, either in respect of the fineness of the body itself, or the smallness of the parts, or of the subtilty of the motion, is little inquired. And yet these be the things that govern nature principally: and without which you cannot make any true analysis and indication of the proceedings of nature. The spirits or pneumaticals, that are in all tangible bodies, are scarce known. Sometimes they take them for vacuum; whereas they are the most active of bodies. Sometimes they take them for air; from which they differ exceedingly, as much as wine from water; and as wood from earth. Sometimes they will have them to be natural heat, or a portion of the element of fire; whereas some of them are crude and cold. And sometimes they will have them to be the virtues and qualities of the tangible parts which

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they see; whereas they are things by themselves. And then, when they come to plants and living crea tures, they call them souls. And such superficial speculations they have; like prospectives, that shew things inward, when they are but paintings. Neither is this a question of words, but infinitely material in nature. For spirits are nothing else but a natural body, rarified to a proportion, and included in the tangible parts of bodies, as in an integument. And they be no less differing one from the other, than the dense or tangible parts; and they are in all tangible bodies whatsoever, more or less; and they are never almost at rest and from them, and their motions, principally proceed arefaction, colliquation, concoc tion, maturation, putrefaction, vivification, and most of the effects of nature: for, as we have figured them in our Sapientia veterum, in the fable of Proserpina, you shall in the infernal regiment hear little doings of Pluto, but most of Proserpina: for tangible parts in bodies are stupid things; and the spirits do in effect all. As for the differences of tangible parts in bodies, the industry of the chemists hath given some light, in discerning by their separations the oily, crude, pure, impure, fine, gross parts of bodies, and the like. And the physicians are content to acknowledge, that herbs and drugs have divers parts; as that opium hath a stupefactive part, and a heating part; the one moving sleep, the other a sweat following; and that rhubarb hath purging parts, and astringent parts, etc. But this whole inquisition is weakly and negligently handled. And for the more subtle differences of the minute parts, and the posture of them in the body, which also hath great effects, they are not at all touched: as for the motions of the minute parts of bodies, which do so great effects, they have not been observed at all; because they are invisible, and incur not to the eye; but yet they are to be deprehended by experience: as Democritus said well, when they charged him to hold, that the world was made of such little motes, as were seen in the sun: Atomus, saith he, necessitate rationis et ex

perientiæ esse convincitur; atomum enim nemo unquam vidit. And therefore the tumult in the parts of solid bodies, when they are compressed, which is the cause of all flight of bodies through the air, and of other mechanical motions, as hath been partly touched before, and shall be throughly handled in due place, is not seen at all. But nevertheless, if you know it not, or inquire it not attentively and diligently, you shall never be able to discern, and much less to produce, a number of mechanical motions. Again, as to the motions corporal, within the inclosures of bodies, whereby the effects, which were mentioned before, pass between the spirits and the tangible parts, which are arefaction, colliquation, concoction, maturation, etc. they are not at all handled. But they are put off by the names of virtues, and natures, and actions, and passions, and such other logical words.

Experiment solitary touching the power of heat. 99. It is certain, that of all powers in nature heat is the chief; both in the frame of nature, and in the works of art. Certain it is likewise, that the effects of heat are most advanced, when it worketh upon a body without loss or dissipation of the matter; for that ever betrayeth the account. And therefore it is true, that the power of heat is best perceived in distillations which are performed in close vessels and receptacles. But yet there is a higher degree; for howsoever distillations do keep the body in cells and cloisters, without going abroad, yet they give space unto bodies to turn into vapour; to return into liquor; and to separate one part from another. as nature doth expatiate, although it hath not full liberty: whereby the true and ultime operations of heat are not attained. But if bodies may be altered by heat, and yet no such reciprocation of rarefaction, and of condensation, and of separation, admitted; then it is like that this Proteus of matter, being held by the sleeves, will turn and change into many metamorphoses. Take therefore a square vessel of iron, in form of a cube, and let it have good thick and strong sides.

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Put into it a cube of wood, that may fill it as close as may be; and let it have a cover of iron, as strong at least as the sides; and let it be well luted, after the manner of the chemists. Then place the vessel within burning coals, kept quick kindled for some few hours space. Then take the vessel from the fire, and take off the cover, and see what is become of the wood. I conceive, that since all inflammation and evaporation are utterly prohibited, and the body still turned upon itself, that one of these two effects will follow either that the body of the wood will be turned into a kind of amalgama, as the chemists call it, or that the finer part will be turned into air, and the grosser stick as it were baked, and incrustate upon the sides of the vessel, being become of a denser matter than the wood itself crude. And for another trial, take also water, and put it in the like vessel, stopped as before; but use a gentler heat, and remove the vessel sometimes from the fire; and again, after some small time, when it is cold, renew the heating of it; and repeat this alteration some few times: and if you can once bring to pass, that the water, which is one of the simplest of bodies, be changed in colour, odour, or taste, after the manner of compound bodies, you may be sure that there is a great work wrought in nature, and a notable entrance made into strange changes of bodies and productions; and also a way made to do that by fire, in small time, which the sun and age do in long time. But of the admirable effects of this distillation in close, for so we will call it, which is like the wombs and matrices of living creatures, where nothing expireth nor se parateth, we will speak fully, in the due place; not that we aim at the making of Paracelsus's pygmies, or any such prodigious follies; but that we know the effects of heat will be such, as will scarce fall under the conceit of man, if the force of it be altogether kept in.

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Experiment solitary touching the impossibility of annihilation.

100. THERE is nothing more certain in nature than that it is impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated; but that as it was the work of the omnipotency of God to make somewhat of nothing, so it requireth the like omnipotency to turn somewhat into nothing. And therefore it is well said by an obscure writer of the sect of the chemists, that there is no such way to effect the strange transmutations of bodies, as to endeavour and urge by all means the reducing of them to nothing. And herein is contained also a great secret of preservation of bodies from change; for if you can prohibit, that they neither turn into air, because no air cometh to them; nor go into the bodies adjacent, because they are utterly heterogeneal; nor make a round and circulation within themselves; they will never change, though they be in their nature never so perishable or mutable. We see how flies, and spiders, and the like, get a sepulchre in amber, more durable than the monument and embalming of the body of any king. And I conceive the like will be of bodies put into quicksilver. But then they must be but thin, as a leaf, or a piece of paper or parchment; for if they have a greater crassitude, they will alter in their own body, though they spend not. But of this we shall speak more when we handle the title of conservation of bodies.

VOL. I.

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