SUBSECT. I.—Digression of Anatomy.

Before I proceed to define the disease of melancholy, what it is, or to discourse farther of it, I hold it not impertinent to make a brief digression of the anatomy of the body and faculties of the soul, for the better understanding of that which is to follow; because many hard words will often occur, as mirach, hypocondries, emerods, &c., imagination, reason, humours, spirits, vital, natural, animal, nerves, veins, arteries, chylus, pituita; which by the vulgar will not so easily be perceived, what they are, how cited, and to what end they serve. And besides, it may peradventure give occasion to some men to examine more accurately, search further into this most excellent subject, and thereupon with that royal [944]prophet to praise God, (for a man is fearfully and wonderfully made, and curiously wrought) that have time and leisure enough, and are sufficiently informed in all other worldly businesses, as to make a good bargain, buy and sell, to keep and make choice of a fair hawk, hound, horse, &c. But for such matters as concern the knowledge of themselves, they are wholly ignorant and careless; they know not what this body and soul are, how combined, of what parts and faculties they consist, or how a man differs from a dog. And what can be more ignominious and filthy (as [945]Melancthon well inveighs) than for a man not to know the structure and composition of his own body, especially since the knowledge of it tends so much to the preservation, of his health, and information of his manners? To stir them up therefore to this study, to peruse those elaborate works of [946]Galen, Bauhines, Plater, Vesalius, Falopius, Laurentius, Remelinus, &c., which have written copiously in Latin; or that which some of our industrious countrymen have done in our mother tongue, not long since, as that translation of [947]Columbus and [948] Microcosmographia, in thirteen books, I have made this brief digression. Also because [949]Wecker, [950]Melancthon, [951]Fernelius, [952] Fuschius, and those tedious Tracts de Anima (which have more compendiously handled and written of this matter,) are not at all times ready to be had, to give them some small taste, or notice of the rest, let this epitome suffice.

SUBSECT. II.—Division of the Body, Humours, Spirits.

Of the parts of the body there may be many divisions: the most approved is that of [953]Laurentius, out of Hippocrates: which is, into parts contained, or containing. Contained, are either humours or spirits.

Humours.] A humour is a liquid or fluent part of the body, comprehended in it, for the preservation of it; and is either innate or born with us, or adventitious and acquisite. The radical or innate, is daily supplied by nourishment, which some call cambium, and make those secondary humours of ros and gluten to maintain it: or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary humours, coming and proceeding from the first concoction in the liver, by which means chylus is excluded. Some divide them into profitable and excrementitious. But [954]Crato out of Hippocrates will have all four to be juice, and not excrements, without which no living creature can be sustained: which four, though they be comprehended in the mass of blood, yet they have their several affections, by which they are distinguished from one another, and from those adventitious, peccant, or [955]diseased humours, as Melancthon calls them.

Blood.] Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humour, prepared in the mesaraic veins, and made of the most temperate parts of the chylus in the liver, whose office is to nourish the whole body, to give it strength and colour, being dispersed by the veins through every part of it. And from it spirits are first begotten in the heart, which afterwards by the arteries are communicated to the other parts.

Pituita, or phlegm, is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder part of the chylus (or white juice coming out of the meat digested in the stomach,) in the liver; his office is to nourish and moisten the members of the body, which as the tongue are moved, that they be not over dry.

Choler, is hot and dry, bitter, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus, and gathered to the gall: it helps the natural heat and senses, and serves to the expelling of excrements.

Melancholy.] Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones. These four humours have some analogy with the four elements, and to the four ages in man.

Serum, Sweat, Tears.] To these humours you may add serum, which is the matter of urine, and those excrementitious humours of the third concoction, sweat and tears.

Spirits.] Spirit is a most subtle vapour, which is expressed from the blood, and the instrument of the soul, to perform all his actions; a common tie or medium between the body and the soul, as some will have it; or as [956]Paracelsus, a fourth soul of itself. Melancthon holds the fountain of those spirits to be the heart, begotten there; and afterward conveyed to the brain, they take another nature to them. Of these spirits there be three kinds, according to the three principal parts, brain, heart, liver; natural, vital, animal. The natural are begotten in the liver, and thence dispersed through the veins, to perform those natural actions. The vital spirits are made in the heart of the natural, which by the arteries are transported to all the other parts: if the spirits cease, then life ceaseth, as in a syncope or swooning. The animal spirits formed of the vital, brought up to the brain, and diffused by the nerves, to the subordinate members, give sense and motion to them all.

SUBSECT. III.—Similar Parts.

Similar Parts] Containing parts, by reason of their more solid substance, are either homogeneal or heterogeneal, similar or dissimilar; so Aristotle divides them, lib. 1, cap. 1, de Hist. Animal.; Laurentius, cap. 20, lib. 1. Similar, or homogeneal, are such as, if they be divided, are still severed into parts of the same nature, as water into water. Of these some be spermatical, some fleshy or carnal. [957]Spermatical are such as are immediately begotten of the seed, which are bones, gristles, ligaments, membranes, nerves, arteries, veins, skins, fibres or strings, fat.

Bones.] The bones are dry and hard, begotten of the thickest of the seed, to strengthen and sustain other parts: some say there be 304, some 307, or 313 in man's body. They have no nerves in them, and are therefore without sense.

A gristle is a substance softer than bone, and harder than the rest, flexible, and serves to maintain the parts of motion.

Ligaments are they that tie the bones together, and other parts to the bones, with their subserving tendons: membranes' office is to cover the rest.

Nerves, or sinews, are membranes without, and full of marrow within; they proceed from the brain, and carry the animal spirits for sense and motion. Of these some be harder, some softer; the softer serve the senses, and there be seven pair of them. The first be the optic nerves, by which we see; the second move the eyes; the third pair serve for the tongue to taste; the fourth pair for the taste in the palate; the fifth belong to the ears; the sixth pair is most ample, and runs almost over all the bowels; the seventh pair moves the tongue. The harder sinews serve for the motion of the inner parts, proceeding from the marrow in the back, of whom there be thirty combinations, seven of the neck, twelve of the breast, &c.

Arteries.] Arteries are long and hollow, with a double skin to convey the vital spirit; to discern which the better, they say that Vesalius the anatomist was wont to cut up men alive. [958]They arise in the left side of the heart, and are principally two, from which the rest are derived, aorta and venosa: aorta is the root of all the other, which serve the whole body; the other goes to the lungs, to fetch air to refrigerate the heart.

Veins.] Veins are hollow and round, like pipes, arising from the liver, carrying blood and natural spirits; they feed all the parts. Of these there be two chief, Vena porta and Vena cava, from which the rest are corrivated. That Vena porta is a vein coming from the concave of the liver, and receiving those mesaraical veins, by whom he takes the chylus from the stomach and guts, and conveys it to the liver. The other derives blood from the liver to nourish all the other dispersed members. The branches of that Vena porta are the mesaraical and haemorrhoids. The branches of the cava are inward or outward. Inward, seminal or emulgent. Outward, in the head, arms, feet, &c., and have several names.

Fibrae, Fat, Flesh.] Fibrae are strings, white and solid, dispersed through the whole member, and right, oblique, transverse, all which have their several uses. Fat is a similar part, moist, without blood, composed of the most thick and unctuous matter of the blood. The [959]skin covers the rest, and hath cuticulum, or a little skin tinder it. Flesh is soft and ruddy, composed of the congealing of blood, &c.

SUBSECT. IV.—Dissimilar Parts.

Dissimilar parts are those which we call organical, or instrumental, and they be inward or outward. The chiefest outward parts are situate forward or backward:—forward, the crown and foretop of the head, skull, face, forehead, temples, chin, eyes, ears, nose, &c., neck, breast, chest, upper and lower part of the belly, hypocondries, navel, groin, flank, &c.; backward, the hinder part of the head, back, shoulders, sides, loins, hipbones, os sacrum, buttocks, &c. Or joints, arms, hands, feet, legs, thighs, knees, &c. Or common to both, which, because they are obvious and well known, I have carelessly repeated, eaque praecipua et grandiora tantum; quod reliquum ex libris de anima qui volet, accipiat.

Inward organical parts, which cannot be seen, are divers in number, and have several names, functions, and divisions; but that of [960]Laurentius is most notable, into noble or ignoble parts. Of the noble there be three principal parts, to which all the rest belong, and whom they serve—brain, heart, liver; according to whose site, three regions, or a threefold division, is made of the whole body. As first of the head, in which the animal organs are contained, and brain itself, which by his nerves give sense and motion to the rest, and is, as it were, a privy counsellor and chancellor to the heart. The second region is the chest, or middle belly, in which the heart as king keeps his court, and by his arteries communicates life to the whole body. The third region is the lower belly, in which the liver resides as a Legat a latere, with the rest of those natural organs, serving for concoction, nourishment, expelling of excrements. This lower region is distinguished from the upper by the midriff, or diaphragma, and is subdivided again by [961]some into three concavities or regions, upper, middle, and lower. The upper of the hypocondries, in whose right side is the liver, the left the spleen; from which is denominated hypochondriacal melancholy. The second of the navel and flanks, divided from the first by the rim. The last of the water course, which is again subdivided into three other parts. The Arabians make two parts of this region, Epigastrium and Hypogastrium, upper or lower. Epigastrium they call Mirach, from whence comes Mirachialis Melancholia, sometimes mentioned of them. Of these several regions I will treat in brief apart; and first of the third region, in which the natural organs are contained.

De Anima.—The Lower Region, Natural Organs.] But you that are readers in the meantime, Suppose you were now brought into some sacred temple, or majestical palace (as [962]Melancthon saith), to behold not the matter only, but the singular art, workmanship, and counsel of this our great Creator. And it is a pleasant and profitable speculation, if it be considered aright. The parts of this region, which present themselves to your consideration and view, are such as serve to nutrition or generation. Those of nutrition serve to the first or second concoction; as the oesophagus or gullet, which brings meat and drink into the stomach. The ventricle or stomach, which is seated in the midst of that part of the belly beneath the midriff, the kitchen, as it were, of the first concoction, and which turns our meat into chylus. It hath two mouths, one above, another beneath. The upper is sometimes taken for the stomach itself; the lower and nether door (as Wecker calls it) is named Pylorus. This stomach is sustained by a large kell or caul, called omentum; which some will have the same with peritoneum, or rim of the belly. From the stomach to the very fundament are produced the guts, or intestina, which serve a little to alter and distribute the chylus, and convey away the excrements. They are divided into small and great, by reason of their site and substance, slender or thicker: the slender is duodenum, or whole gut, which is next to the stomach, some twelve inches long, saith [963] Fuschius. Jejunum, or empty gut, continuate to the other, which hath many mesaraic veins annexed to it, which take part of the chylus to the liver from it. Ilion the third, which consists of many crinkles, which serves with the rest to receive, keep, and distribute the chylus from the stomach. The thick guts are three, the blind gut, colon, and right gut. The blind is a thick and short gut, having one mouth, in which the ilium and colon meet: it receives the excrements, and conveys them to the colon. This colon hath many windings, that the excrements pass not away too fast: the right gut is straight, and conveys the excrements to the fundament, whose lower part is bound up with certain muscles called sphincters, that the excrements may be the better contained, until such time as a man be willing to go to the stool. In the midst of these guts is situated the mesenterium or midriff, composed of many veins, arteries, and much fat, serving chiefly to sustain the guts. All these parts serve the first concoction. To the second, which is busied either in refining the good nourishment or expelling the bad, is chiefly belonging the liver, like in colour to congealed blood, the shop of blood, situate in the right hypochondry, in figure like to a half-moon, generosum membrum Melancthon styles it, a generous part; it serves to turn the chylus to blood, for the nourishment of the body. The excrements of it are either choleric or watery, which the other subordinate parts convey. The gall placed in the concave of the liver, extracts choler to it: the spleen, melancholy; which is situate on the left side, over against the liver, a spongy matter, that draws this black choler to it by a secret virtue, and feeds upon it, conveying the rest to the bottom of the stomach, to stir up appetite, or else to the guts as an excrement. That watery matter the two kidneys expurgate by those emulgent veins and ureters. The emulgent draw this superfluous moisture from the blood; the two ureters convey it to the bladder, which, by reason of his site in the lower belly, is apt to receive it, having two parts, neck and bottom: the bottom holds the water, the neck is constringed with a muscle, which, as a porter, keeps the water from running out against our will.

Members of generation are common to both sexes, or peculiar to one; which, because they are impertinent to my purpose, I do voluntarily omit.

Middle Region.] Next in order is the middle region, or chest, which comprehends the vital faculties and parts; which (as I have said) is separated from the lower belly by the diaphragma or midriff, which is a skin consisting of many nerves, membranes; and amongst other uses it hath, is the instrument of laughing. There is also a certain thin membrane, full of sinews, which covereth the whole chest within, and is called pleura, the seat of the disease called pleurisy, when it is inflamed; some add a third skin, which is termed mediastinus, which divides the chest into two parts, right and left; of this region the principal part is the heart, which is the seat and fountain of life, of heat, of spirits, of pulse and respiration—the sun of our body, the king and sole commander of it—the seat and organ of all passions and affections. Primum vivens, ultimum moriens, it lives first, dies last in all creatures. Of a pyramidical form, and not much unlike to a pineapple; a part worthy of [964] admiration, that can yield such variety of affections, by whose motion it is dilated or contracted, to stir and command the humours in the body. As in sorrow, melancholy; in anger, choler; in joy, to send the blood outwardly; in sorrow, to call it in; moving the humours, as horses do a chariot. This heart, though it be one sole member, yet it may be divided into two creeks right and left. The right is like the moon increasing, bigger than the other part, and receives blood from vena cava, distributing some of it to the lungs to nourish them; the rest to the left side, to engender spirits. The left creek hath the form of a cone, and is the seat of life, which, as a torch doth oil, draws blood unto it, begetting of it spirits and fire; and as fire in a torch, so are spirits in the blood; and by that great artery called aorta, it sends vital spirits over the body, and takes air from the lungs by that artery which is called venosa; so that both creeks have their vessels, the right two veins, the left two arteries, besides those two common anfractuous ears, which serve them both; the one to hold blood, the other air, for several uses. The lungs is a thin spongy part, like an ox hoof, (saith [965]Fernelius) the town-clerk or crier, ([966]one terms it) the instrument of voice, as an orator to a king; annexed to the heart, to express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice, is manifest, in that no creature can speak, or utter any voice, which wanteth these lights. It is, besides, the instrument of respiration, or breathing; and its office is to cool the heart, by sending air unto it, by the venosal artery, which vein comes to the lungs by that aspera arteria which consists of many gristles, membranes, nerves, taking in air at the nose and mouth, and by it likewise exhales the fumes of the heart.

In the upper region serving the animal faculties, the chief organ is the brain, which is a soft, marrowish, and white substance, engendered of the purest part of seed and spirits, included by many skins, and seated within the skull or brain pan; and it is the most noble organ under heaven, the dwelling-house and seat of the soul, the habitation of wisdom, memory, judgment, reason, and in which man is most like unto God; and therefore nature hath covered it with a skull of hard bone, and two skins or membranes, whereof the one is called dura mater, or meninx, the other pia mater. The dura mater is next to the skull, above the other, which includes and protects the brain. When this is taken away, the pia mater is to be seen, a thin membrane, the next and immediate cover of the brain, and not covering only, but entering into it. The brain itself is divided into two parts, the fore and hinder part; the fore part is much bigger than the other, which is called the little brain in respect of it. This fore part hath many concavities distinguished by certain ventricles, which are the receptacles of the spirits, brought hither by the arteries from the heart, and are there refined to a more heavenly nature, to perform the actions of the soul. Of these ventricles there are three—right, left, and middle. The right and left answer to their site, and beget animal spirits; if they be any way hurt, sense and motion ceaseth. These ventricles, moreover, are held to be the seat of the common sense. The middle ventricle is a common concourse and cavity of them both, and hath two passages—the one to receive pituita, and the other extends itself to the fourth creek; in this they place imagination and cogitation, and so the three ventricles of the fore part of the brain are used. The fourth creek behind the head is common to the cerebel or little brain, and marrow of the backbone, the last and most solid of all the rest, which receives the animal spirits from the other ventricles, and conveys them to the marrow in the back, and is the place where they say the memory is seated.

SUBSECT. V.—Of the Soul and her Faculties.

According to [967]Aristotle, the soul is defined to be ντελχεια, perfectio et actus primus corporis organici, vitam habentis in potentia: the perfection or first act of an organical body, having power of life, which most [968]philosophers approve. But many doubts arise about the essence, subject, seat, distinction, and subordinate faculties of it. For the essence and particular knowledge, of all other things it is most hard (be it of man or beast) to discern, as [969]Aristotle himself, [970]Tully, [971]Picus Mirandula, [972]Tolet, and other neoteric philosophers confess:—[973]We can understand all things by her, but what she is we cannot apprehend. Some therefore make one soul, divided into three principal faculties; others, three distinct souls. Which question of late hath been much controverted by Picolomineus and Zabarel. [974] Paracelsus will have four souls, adding to the three grand faculties a spiritual soul: which opinion of his, Campanella, in his book de sensu rerum [975]much labours to demonstrate and prove, because carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer; with many such arguments And [976]some again, one soul of all creatures whatsoever, differing only in organs; and that beasts have reason as well as men, though, for some defect of organs, not in such measure. Others make a doubt whether it be all in all, and all in every part; which is amply discussed in Zabarel amongst the rest. The [977]common division of the soul is into three principal faculties—vegetal, sensitive, and rational, which make three distinct kinds of living creatures—vegetal plants, sensible beasts, rational men. How these three principal faculties are distinguished and connected, Humano ingenio inaccessum videtur, is beyond human capacity, as [978] Taurellus, Philip, Flavins, and others suppose. The inferior may be alone, but the superior cannot subsist without the other; so sensible includes vegetal, rational both; which are contained in it (saith Aristotle) ut trigonus in tetragono as a triangle in a quadrangle.

Vegetal Soul.] Vegetal, the first of the three distinct faculties, is defined to be a substantial act of an organical body, by which it is nourished, augmented, and begets another like unto itself. In which definition, three several operations are specified—altrix, auctrix, procreatrix; the first is [979]nutrition, whose object is nourishment, meat, drink, and the like; his organ the liver in sensible creatures; in plants, the root or sap. His office is to turn the nutriment into the substance of the body nourished, which he performs by natural heat. This nutritive operation hath four other subordinate functions or powers belonging to it—attraction, retention, digestion, expulsion.

Attraction.] [980]Attraction is a ministering faculty, which, as a loadstone doth iron, draws meat into the stomach, or as a lamp doth oil; and this attractive power is very necessary in plants, which suck up moisture by the root, as, another mouth, into the sap, as a like stomach.

Retention.] Retention keeps it, being attracted unto the stomach, until such time it be concocted; for if it should pass away straight, the body could not be nourished.

Digestion.] Digestion is performed by natural heat; for as the flame of a torch consumes oil, wax, tallow, so doth it alter and digest the nutritive matter. Indigestion is opposite unto it, for want of natural heat. Of this digestion there be three differences—maturation, elixation, assation.

Maturation.] Maturation is especially observed in the fruits of trees; which are then said to be ripe, when the seeds are fit to be sown again. Crudity is opposed to it, which gluttons, epicures, and idle persons are most subject unto, that use no exercise to stir natural heat, or else choke it, as too much wood puts out a fire.

Elixation.] Elixation is the seething of meat in the stomach, by the said natural heat, as meat is boiled in a pot; to which corruption or putrefaction is opposite.

Assation.] Assation is a concoction of the inward moisture by heat; his opposite is semiustulation.

Order of Concoction fourfold.] Besides these three several operations of digestion, there is a fourfold order of concoction:—mastication, or chewing in the mouth; chilification of this so chewed meat in the stomach; the third is in the liver, to turn this chylus into blood, called sanguification; the last is assimilation, which is in every part.

Expulsion.] Expulsion is a power of nutrition, by which it expels all superfluous excrements, and relics of meat and drink, by the guts, bladder, pores; as by purging, vomiting, spitting, sweating, urine, hairs, nails, &c.

Augmentation.] As this nutritive faculty serves to nourish the body, so doth the augmenting faculty (the second operation or power of the vegetal faculty) to the increasing of it in quantity, according to all dimensions, long, broad, thick, and to make it grow till it come to his due proportion and perfect shape; which hath his period of augmentation, as of consumption; and that most certain, as the poet observes:—

Generation.] The last of these vegetal faculties is generation, which begets another by means of seed, like unto itself, to the perpetual preservation of the species. To this faculty they ascribe three subordinate operations:—the first to turn nourishment into seed, &c.

Life and Death concomitants of the Vegetal Faculties.] Necessary concomitants or affections of this vegetal faculty are life and his privation, death. To the preservation of life the natural heat is most requisite, though siccity and humidity, and those first qualities, be not excluded. This heat is likewise in plants, as appears by their increasing, fructifying, &c., though not so easily perceived. In all bodies it must have radical [981]moisture to preserve it, that it be not consumed; to which preservation our clime, country, temperature, and the good or bad use of those six non-natural things avail much. For as this natural heat and moisture decays, so doth our life itself; and if not prevented before by some violent accident, or interrupted through our own default, is in the end dried up by old age, and extinguished by death for want of matter, as a lamp for defect of oil to maintain it.

SUBSECT. VI.—Of the sensible Soul.

Next in order is the sensible faculty, which is as far beyond the other in dignity, as a beast is preferred to a plant, having those vegetal powers included in it. 'Tis defined an Act of an organical body by which it lives, hath sense, appetite, judgment, breath, and motion. His object in general is a sensible or passible quality, because the sense is affected with it. The general organ is the brain, from which principally the sensible operations are derived. This sensible soul is divided into two parts, apprehending or moving. By the apprehensive power we perceive the species of sensible things present, or absent, and retain them as wax doth the print of a seal. By the moving, the body is outwardly carried from one place to another; or inwardly moved by spirits and pulse. The apprehensive faculty is subdivided into two parts, inward or outward. Outward, as the five senses, of touching, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, to which you may add Scaliger's sixth sense of titillation, if you please; or that of speech, which is the sixth external sense, according to Lullius. Inward are three—common sense, phantasy, memory. Those five outward senses have their object in outward things only, and such as are present, as the eye sees no colour except it be at hand, the ear sound. Three of these senses are of commodity, hearing, sight, and smell; two of necessity, touch, and taste, without which we cannot live. Besides, the sensitive power is active or passive. Active in sight, the eye sees the colour; passive when it is hurt by his object, as the eye by the sunbeams. According to that axiom, visibile forte destruit sensum. [982]Or if the object be not pleasing, as a bad sound to the ear, a stinking smell to the nose, &c.

Sight.] Of these five senses, sight is held to be most precious, and the best, and that by reason of his object, it sees the whole body at once. By it we learn, and discern all things, a sense most excellent for use: to the sight three things are required; the object, the organ, and the medium. The object in general is visible, or that which is to be seen, as colours, and all shining bodies. The medium is the illumination of the air, which comes from [983]light, commonly called diaphanum; for in dark we cannot see. The organ is the eye, and chiefly the apple of it, which by those optic nerves, concurring both in one, conveys the sight to the common sense. Between the organ and object a true distance is required, that it be not too near, or too far off! Many excellent questions appertain to this sense, discussed by philosophers: as whether this sight be caused intra mittendo, vel extra mittendo, &c., by receiving in the visible species, or sending of them out, which [984]Plato, [985]Plutarch, [986]Macrobius, [987]Lactantius and others dispute. And, besides, it is the subject of the perspectives, of which Alhazen the Arabian, Vitellio, Roger Bacon, Baptista Porta, Guidus Ubaldus, Aquilonius, &c., have written whole volumes.

Hearing.] Hearing, a most excellent outward sense, by which we learn and get knowledge. His object is sound, or that which is heard; the medium, air; organ, the ear. To the sound, which is a collision of the air, three things are required; a body to strike, as the hand of a musician; the body struck, which must be solid and able to resist; as a bell, lute-string, not wool, or sponge; the medium, the air; which is inward, or outward; the outward being struck or collided by a solid body, still strikes the next air, until it come to that inward natural air, which as an exquisite organ is contained in a little skin formed like a drum-head, and struck upon by certain small instruments like drum-sticks, conveys the sound by a pair of nerves, appropriated to that use, to the common sense, as to a judge of sounds. There is great variety and much delight in them; for the knowledge of which, consult with Boethius and other musicians.

Smelling.] Smelling is an outward sense, which apprehends by the nostrils drawing in air; and of all the rest it is the weakest sense in men. The organ in the nose, or two small hollow pieces of flesh a little above it: the medium the air to men, as water to fish: the object, smell, arising from a mixed body resolved, which, whether it be a quality, fume, vapour, or exhalation, I will not now dispute, or of their differences, and how they are caused. This sense is an organ of health, as sight and hearing, saith [988]Agellius, are of discipline; and that by avoiding bad smells, as by choosing good, which do as much alter and affect the body many times, as diet itself.

Taste.] Taste, a necessary sense, which perceives all savours by the tongue and palate, and that by means of a thin spittle, or watery juice. His organ is the tongue with his tasting nerves; the medium, a watery juice; the object, taste, or savour, which is a quality in the juice, arising from the mixture of things tasted. Some make eight species or kinds of savour, bitter, sweet, sharp, salt, &c., all which sick men (as in an ague) cannot discern, by reason of their organs misaffected.

Touching.] Touch, the last of the senses, and most ignoble, yet of as great necessity as the other, and of as much pleasure. This sense is exquisite in men, and by his nerves dispersed all over the body, perceives any tactile quality. His organ the nerves; his object those first qualities, hot, dry, moist, cold; and those that follow them, hard, soft, thick, thin, &c. Many delightsome questions are moved by philosophers about these five senses; their organs, objects, mediums, which for brevity I omit.

SUBSECT. VII.—Of the Inward Senses.

Common Sense.] Inner senses are three in number, so called, because they be within the brainpan, as common sense, phantasy, memory. Their objects are not only things present, but they perceive the sensible species of things to come, past, absent, such as were before in the sense. This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects; for by mine eye I do not know that I see, or by mine ear that I hear, but by my common sense, who judgeth of sounds and colours: they are but the organs to bring the species to be censured; so that all their objects are his, and all their offices are his. The fore part of the brain is his organ or seat.

Phantasy.] Phantasy, or imagination, which some call estimative, or cogitative, (confirmed, saith [989]Fernelius, by frequent meditation,) is an inner sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own. In time of sleep this faculty is free, and many times conceive strange, stupend, absurd shapes, as in sick men we commonly observe. His organ is the middle cell of the brain; his objects all the species communicated to him by the common sense, by comparison of which he feigns infinite other unto himself. In melancholy men this faculty is most powerful and strong, and often hurts, producing many monstrous and prodigious things, especially if it be stirred up by some terrible object, presented to it from common sense or memory. In poets and painters imagination forcibly works, as appears by their several fictions, antics, images: as Ovid's house of sleep, Psyche's palace in Apuleius, &c. In men it is subject and governed by reason, or at least should be; but in brutes it hath no superior, and is ratio brutorum, all the reason they have.

Memory.] Memory lays up all the species which the senses have brought in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming when they are called for by phantasy and reason. His object is the same with phantasy, his seat and organ the back part of the brain.

Affections of the Senses, sleep and waking.] The affections of these senses are sleep and waking, common to all sensible creatures. Sleep is a rest or binding of the outward senses, and of the common sense, for the preservation of body and soul (as Scaliger [990]defines it); for when the common sense resteth, the outward senses rest also. The phantasy alone is free, and his commander reason: as appears by those imaginary dreams, which are of divers kinds, natural, divine, demoniacal, &c., which vary according to humours, diet, actions, objects, &c., of which Artemidorus, Cardanus, and Sambucus, with their several interpretators, have written great volumes. This litigation of senses proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which they should come; this stopping is caused of vapours arising out of the stomach, filling the nerves, by which the spirits should be conveyed. When these vapours are spent, the passage is open, and the spirits perform their accustomed duties: so that waking is the action and motion of the senses, which the spirits dispersed over all parts cause.

SUBSECT. VIII.—Of the Moving Faculty.

Appetite] This moving faculty is the other power of the sensitive soul, which causeth all those inward and outward animal motions in the body. It is divided into two faculties, the power of appetite, and of moving from place to place. This of appetite is threefold, so some will have it; natural, as it signifies any such inclination, as of a stone to fall downward, and such actions as retention, expulsion, which depend not on sense, but are vegetal, as the appetite of meat and drink; hunger and thirst. Sensitive is common to men and brutes. Voluntary, the third, or intellective, which commands the other two in men, and is a curb unto them, or at least should be, but for the most part is captivated and overruled by them; and men are led like beasts by sense, giving reins to their concupiscence and several lusts. For by this appetite the soul is led or inclined to follow that good which the senses shall approve, or avoid that which they hold evil: his object being good or evil, the one he embraceth, the other he rejecteth; according to that aphorism, Omnia appetunt bonum, all things seek their own good, or at least seeming good. This power is inseparable from sense, for where sense is, there are likewise pleasure and pain. His organ is the same with the common sense, and is divided into two powers, or inclinations, concupiscible or irascible: or (as one [991] translates it) coveting, anger invading, or impugning. Concupiscible covets always pleasant and delightsome things, and abhors that which is distasteful, harsh, and unpleasant. Irascible, quasi [992] aversans per iram et odium, as avoiding it with anger and indignation. All affections and perturbations arise out of these two fountains, which, although the stoics make light of, we hold natural, and not to be resisted. The good affections are caused by some object of the same nature; and if present, they procure joy, which dilates the heart, and preserves the body: if absent, they cause hope, love, desire, and concupiscence. The bad are simple or mixed: simple for some bad object present, as sorrow, which contracts the heart, macerates the soul, subverts the good estate of the body, hindering all the operations of it, causing melancholy, and many times death itself; or future, as fear. Out of these two arise those mixed affections and passions of anger, which is a desire of revenge; hatred, which is inveterate anger; zeal, which is offended with him who hurts that he loves; and πικαιρεκακα, a compound affection of joy and hate, when we rejoice at other men's mischief, and are grieved at their prosperity; pride, self-love, emulation, envy, shame, &c., of which elsewhere.

Moving from place to place, is a faculty necessarily following the other. For in vain were it otherwise to desire and to abhor, if we had not likewise power to prosecute or eschew, by moving the body from place to place: by this faculty therefore we locally move the body, or any part of it, and go from one place to another. To the better performance of which, three things are requisite: that which moves; by what it moves; that which is moved. That which moves, is either the efficient cause, or end. The end is the object, which is desired or eschewed; as in a dog to catch a hare, &c. The efficient cause in man is reason, or his subordinate phantasy, which apprehends good or bad objects: in brutes imagination alone, which moves the appetite, the appetite this faculty, which by an admirable league of nature, and by meditation of the spirit, commands the organ by which it moves: and that consists of nerves, muscles, cords, dispersed through the whole body, contracted and relaxed as the spirits will, which move the muscles, or [993]nerves in the midst of them, and draw the cord, and so per consequens the joint, to the place intended. That which is moved, is the body or some member apt to move. The motion of the body is divers, as going, running, leaping, dancing, sitting, and such like, referred to the predicament of situs. Worms creep, birds fly, fishes swim; and so of parts, the chief of which is respiration or breathing, and is thus performed. The outward air is drawn in by the vocal artery, and sent by mediation of the midriff to the lungs, which, dilating themselves as a pair of bellows, reciprocally fetch it in, and send it out to the heart to cool it; and from thence now being hot, convey it again, still taking in fresh. Such a like motion is that of the pulse, of which, because many have written whole books, I will say nothing.

SUBSECT. IX.—Of the Rational Soul.

In the precedent subsections I have anatomised those inferior faculties of the soul; the rational remaineth, a pleasant, but a doubtful subject (as [994]one terms it), and with the like brevity to be discussed. Many erroneous opinions are about the essence and original of it; whether it be fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates; whether it be organical, or inorganical; seated in the brain, heart or blood; mortal or immortal; how it comes into the body. Some hold that it is ex traduce, as Phil. 1. de Anima, Tertullian, Lactantius de opific. Dei, cap. 19. Hugo, lib. de Spiritu et Anima, Vincentius Bellavic. spec. natural. lib. 23. cap. 2. et 11. Hippocrates, Avicenna, and many [995] late writers; that one man begets another, body and soul; or as a candle from a candle, to be produced from the seed: otherwise, say they, a man begets but half a man, and is worse than a beast that begets both matter and form; and, besides, the three faculties of the soul must be together infused, which is most absurd as they hold, because in beasts they are begot, the two inferior I mean, and may not be well separated in men. [996] Galen supposeth the soul crasin esse, to be the temperature itself; Trismegistus, Musaeus, Orpheus, Homer, Pindarus, Phaerecides Syrus, Epictetus, with the Chaldees and Egyptians, affirmed the soul to be immortal, as did those British [997]Druids of old. The [998]Pythagoreans defend Metempsychosis; and Palingenesia, that souls go from one body to another, epota prius Lethes unda, as men into wolves, bears, dogs, hogs, as they were inclined in their lives, or participated in conditions:

[1000]Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus, a captain:

a horse, a man, a sponge. [1001]Julian the Apostate thought Alexander's soul was descended into his body: Plato in Timaeo, and in his Phaedon, (for aught I can perceive,) differs not much from this opinion, that it was from God at first, and knew all, but being enclosed in the body, it forgets, and learns anew, which he calls reminiscentia, or recalling, and that it was put into the body for a punishment; and thence it goes into a beast's, or man's, as appears by his pleasant fiction de sortitione animarum, lib. 10. de rep. and after [1002]ten thousand years is to return into the former body again,

Others deny the immortality of it, which Pomponatus of Padua decided out of Aristotle not long since, Plinias Avunculus, cap. 1. lib. 2, et lib. 7. cap. 55; Seneca, lib. 7. epist. ad Lucilium, epist. 55; Dicearchus in Tull. Tusc. Epicurus, Aratus, Hippocrates, Galen, Lucretius, lib. 1.

Averroes, and I know not how many Neoterics. [1005]This question of the immortality of the soul, is diversely and wonderfully impugned and disputed, especially among the Italians of late, saith Jab. Colerus, lib. de immort. animae, cap. 1. The popes themselves have doubted of it: Leo Decimus, that Epicurean pope, as [1006]some record of him, caused this question to be discussed pro and con before him, and concluded at last, as a profane and atheistical moderator, with that verse of Cornelius Gallus,

It began of nothing, and in nothing it ends. Zeno and his Stoics, as [1007]Austin quotes him, supposed the soul so long to continue, till the body was fully putrified, and resolved into materia prima: but after that, in fumos evanescere, to be extinguished and vanished; and in the meantime, whilst the body was consuming, it wandered all abroad, et e longinquo multa annunciare, and (as that Clazomenian Hermotimus averred) saw pretty visions, and suffered I know not what.

Others grant the immortality thereof, but they make many fabulous fictions in the meantime of it, after the departure from the body: like Plato's Elysian fields, and that Turkey paradise. The souls of good men they deified; the bad (saith [1009]Austin) became devils, as they supposed; with many such absurd tenets, which he hath confuted. Hierome, Austin, and other Fathers of the church, hold that the soul is immortal, created of nothing, and so infused into the child or embryo in his mother's womb, six months after the [1010]conception; not as those of brutes, which are ex traduce, and dying with them vanish into nothing. To whose divine treatises, and to the Scriptures themselves, I rejourn all such atheistical spirits, as Tully did Atticus, doubting of this point, to Plato's Phaedon. Or if they desire philosophical proofs and demonstrations, I refer them to Niphus, Nic. Faventinus' tracts of this subject. To Fran. and John Picus in digress: sup. 3. de Anima, Tholosanus, Eugubinus, To. Soto, Canas, Thomas, Peresius, Dandinus, Colerus, to that elaborate tract in Zanchius, to Tolet's Sixty Reasons, and Lessius' Twenty-two Arguments, to prove the immortality of the soul. Campanella, lib. de sensu rerum, is large in the same discourse, Albertinus the Schoolman, Jacob. Nactantus, tom. 2. op. handleth it in four questions, Antony Brunus, Aonius Palearius, Marinus Marcennus, with many others. This reasonable soul, which Austin calls a spiritual substance moving itself, is defined by philosophers to be the first substantial act of a natural, humane, organical body, by which a man lives, perceives, and understands, freely doing all things, and with election. Out of which definition we may gather, that this rational soul includes the powers, and performs the duties of the two other, which are contained in it, and all three faculties make one soul, which is inorganical of itself, although it be in all parts, and incorporeal, using their organs, and working by them. It is divided into two chief parts, differing in office only, not in essence. The understanding, which is the rational power apprehending; the will, which is the rational power moving: to which two, all the other rational powers are subject and reduced.

SUBSECT. X.—Of the Understanding.

Understanding is a power of the soul, [1011]by which we perceive, know, remember, and judge as well singulars, as universals, having certain innate notices or beginnings of arts, a reflecting action, by which it judgeth of his own doings, and examines them. Out of this definition (besides his chief office, which is to apprehend, judge all that he performs, without the help of any instruments or organs) three differences appear betwixt a man and a beast. As first, the sense only comprehends singularities, the understanding universalities. Secondly, the sense hath no innate notions. Thirdly, brutes cannot reflect upon themselves. Bees indeed make neat and curious works, and many other creatures besides; but when they have done, they cannot judge of them. His object is God, ens, all nature, and whatsoever is to be understood: which successively it apprehends. The object first moving the understanding, is some sensible thing; after by discoursing, the mind finds out the corporeal substance, and from thence the spiritual. His actions (some say) are apprehension, composition, division, discoursing, reasoning, memory, which some include in invention, and judgment. The common divisions are of the understanding, agent, and patient; speculative, and practical; in habit, or in act; simple, or compound. The agent is that which is called the wit of man, acumen or subtlety, sharpness of invention, when he doth invent of himself without a teacher, or learns anew, which abstracts those intelligible species from the phantasy, and transfers them to the passive understanding, [1012] because there is nothing in the understanding, which was not first in the sense. That which the imagination hath taken from the sense, this agent judgeth of, whether it be true or false; and being so judged he commits it to the passible to be kept. The agent is a doctor or teacher, the passive a scholar; and his office is to keep and further judge of such things as are committed to his charge; as a bare and rased table at first, capable of all forms and notions. Now these notions are twofold, actions or habits: actions, by which we take notions of, and perceive things; habits, which are durable lights and notions, which we may use when we will. Some reckon up eight kinds of them, sense, experience, intelligence, faith, suspicion, error, opinion, science; to which are added art, prudency, wisdom: as also [1013]synteresis, dictamen rationis, conscience; so that in all there be fourteen species of the understanding, of which some are innate, as the three last mentioned; the other are gotten by doctrine, learning, and use. Plato will have all to be innate: Aristotle reckons up but five intellectual habits; two practical, as prudency, whose end is to practise; to fabricate; wisdom to comprehend the use and experiments of all notions and habits whatsoever. Which division of Aristotle (if it be considered aright) is all one with the precedent; for three being innate, and five acquisite, the rest are improper, imperfect, and in a more strict examination excluded. Of all these I should more amply dilate, but my subject will not permit. Three of them I will only point at, as more necessary to my following discourse.

Synteresis, or the purer part of the conscience, is an innate habit, and doth signify a conversation of the knowledge of the law of God and Nature, to know good or evil. And (as our divines hold) it is rather in the understanding than in the will. This makes the major proposition in a practical syllogism. The dictamen rationis is that which doth admonish us to do good or evil, and is the minor in the syllogism. The conscience is that which approves good or evil, justifying or condemning our actions, and is the conclusion of the syllogism: as in that familiar example of Regulus the Roman, taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, and suffered to go to Rome, on that condition he should return again, or pay so much for his ransom. The synteresis proposeth the question; his word, oath, promise, is to be religiously kept, although to his enemy, and that by the law of nature. [1014]Do not that to another which thou wouldst not have done to thyself. Dictamen applies it to him, and dictates this or the like: Regulus, thou wouldst not another man should falsify his oath, or break promise with thee: conscience concludes, therefore, Regulus, thou dost well to perform thy promise, and oughtest to keep thine oath. More of this in Religious Melancholy.

SUBSECT. XI.—Of the Will.

Will is the other power of the rational soul, [1015]which covets or avoids such things as have been before judged and apprehended by the understanding. If good, it approves; if evil, it abhors it: so that his object is either good or evil. Aristotle calls this our rational appetite; for as, in the sensitive, we are moved to good or bad by our appetite, ruled and directed by sense; so in this we are carried by reason. Besides, the sensitive appetite hath a particular object, good or bad; this an universal, immaterial: that respects only things delectable and pleasant; this honest. Again, they differ in liberty. The sensual appetite seeing an object, if it be a convenient good, cannot but desire it; if evil, avoid it: but this is free in his essence, [1016]much now depraved, obscured, and fallen from his first perfection; yet in some of his operations still free, as to go, walk, move at his pleasure, and to choose whether it will do or not do, steal or not steal. Otherwise, in vain were laws, deliberations, exhortations, counsels, precepts, rewards, promises, threats and punishments: and God should be the author of sin. But in [1017] spiritual things we will no good, prone to evil (except we be regenerate, and led by the Spirit), we are egged on by our natural concupiscence, and there is ταξα, a confusion in our powers, [1018]our whole will is averse from God and his law, not in natural things only, as to eat and drink, lust, to which we are led headlong by our temperature and inordinate appetite,

we cannot resist, our concupiscence is originally bad, our heart evil, the seat of our affections captivates and enforceth our will. So that in voluntary things we are averse from God and goodness, bad by nature, by [1020]ignorance worse, by art, discipline, custom, we get many bad habits: suffering them to domineer and tyrannise over us; and the devil is still ready at hand with his evil suggestions, to tempt our depraved will to some ill-disposed action, to precipitate us to destruction, except our will be swayed and counterpoised again with some divine precepts, and good motions of the spirit, which many times restrain, hinder and check us, when we are in the full career of our dissolute courses. So David corrected himself, when he had Saul at a vantage. Revenge and malice were as two violent oppugners on the one side; but honesty, religion, fear of God, withheld him on the other.

The actions of the will are velle and nolle, to will and nill: which two words comprehend all, and they are good or bad, accordingly as they are directed, and some of them freely performed by himself; although the stoics absolutely deny it, and will have all things inevitably done by destiny, imposing a fatal necessity upon us, which we may not resist; yet we say that our will is free in respect of us, and things contingent, howsoever in respect of God's determinate counsel, they are inevitable and necessary. Some other actions of the will are performed by the inferior powers, which obey him, as the sensitive and moving appetite; as to open our eyes, to go hither and thither, not to touch a book, to speak fair or foul: but this appetite is many times rebellious in us, and will not be contained within the lists of sobriety and temperance. It was (as I said) once well agreeing with reason, and there was an excellent consent and harmony between them, but that is now dissolved, they often jar, reason is overborne by passion: Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas, as so many wild horses run away with a chariot, and will not be curbed. We know many times what is good, but will not do it, as she said,

Lust counsels one thing, reason another, there is a new reluctancy in men. [1022]Odi, nec possum, cupiens non esse, quod odi. We cannot resist, but as Phaedra confessed to her nurse, [1023]quae loqueris, vera sunt, sed furor suggerit sequi pejora: she said well and true, she did acknowledge it, but headstrong passion and fury made her to do that which was opposite. So David knew the filthiness of his fact, what a loathsome, foul, crying sin adultery was, yet notwithstanding he would commit murder, and take away another man's wife, enforced against reason, religion, to follow his appetite.

Those natural and vegetal powers are not commanded by will at all; for who can add one cubit to his stature? These other may, but are not: and thence come all those headstrong passions, violent perturbations of the mind; and many times vicious habits, customs, feral diseases; because we give so much way to our appetite, and follow our inclination, like so many beasts. The principal habits are two in number, virtue and vice, whose peculiar definitions, descriptions, differences, and kinds, are handled at large in the ethics, and are, indeed, the subject of moral philosophy.