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CHAP. XXXVII. The Seat of the Soul. (Book 37)

1. The matter is as yet before the Judge. 2. A third opinion. 3. The head being dead, a certain Bride hath over-lived for eight hours at least. 4. The mouth of the Stomach being smitten, hath brought a sudden and to∣tal death. 5. A Paradox of the Authour concerning the Seat of the Soul. 6. The Creation teacheth this seat. 7. Physitians do occultly consent to those very things unwittingly. 8. The Lord confirmeth the Paradox of the Authour. 9. Some reasons. 10. Against the existence of the Vegetative Soul. 11. The Heart is a servant to the Stomach. 12. The seat remains fixt. 13. That the first powers of conceptions are felt in the mouth of the Stomach. 14. They unwillingly place the facul∣ty of concupiscence in the Stomach and Liver. 15. Whither this specu∣lation tends. 16. They have also against their wills assented to the Pa∣radox of the Authour. 17. The seat of the mind is the same with that of the sensitive soul. 18. The manner of existing in its seat. 19. A piercing of Souls. 20. What the sensitive soul is. 21. A similitude of its existence. 22. Heat is not the fountain of the light of life, but the light of the Archeal life, or product. 23. What the mind is. 24. By the comming of the sensitive soul, death hath entred. 25. A compari∣son of the dignity lost, and obtained. 26. The Spleen, for the Duumvi∣rate. 27. The dignities of offices. 28. All foolish madnesses do from hence take their beginning. 29. A remarkable thing touching the exa∣mination of remedies, a further progresse being denied. 30. How im∣mortality did stand. 31. A change of the State. 32. A Corollary of what hath been said. 33. The errour of the Schools.

THE Sur-name of a Duumvirate, or Sheriff-dome may astonish the Reader with the terrour of novelty: wherefore I am first to render a reason of its Ety∣mologie, and afterwards I shall explain its government. Before all things the seat of the mind is to be searched into: For although the soul be every where, where the life of it is; yet as the Sun is not properly but in his own place, in heaven, although the light thereof be [unspec 1] wheresoever he casts his aspect: There is altogether the same judgment concerning the cen∣tral place of the Soul: But there is a strife about the center, or place of exercise of the soul in the body: And the Standard-defenders, being as it were hung up in the air, do encounter over this thing, no•• having a foundation where to fix their foot. For Plato contends for the Heart, for whom the Holy Scriptures seem to vote, while they reach, that out of the Heart proceed Murders, Adulteries, &c. But Physitians do respect the Head, as it were the Inn of discourse and understanding; especially because the heart, by such an unwearied motion of a stirred pulse, cannot but make the soul to be troubled and unquiet. Those that baptize do follow the opinion of Physitians.

Neither are there those wanting in the mean time, who determine the immortal mind to be so every where, and equally in the body, that they will have it to abide in no certain seat, [unspec 2] no more than it can be tied or bound by the body: And so they suppose the soul to be a wan∣dring, ••oving inhabitant of an uncertain cottage, and to be every way dispersed where life is present: But they do not regard, that some parts are cut off, the life remaining safe; but that others being lightly smitten, do presently bring death on the whole body: Some one often∣times, by his mangled face, and head as it were diminished, testifies death to be present with him, whose heart notwithstanding, by its lukewarmth and pulse, doth promise the soul to be as yet present: And that thing is daily seen in those that do long play the Champion.

A certain Bride, being willing to celebrate her marriage in Opdorp nigh Scalds, because the Governour of the place was there, is saluted by her retainers with the noyse of Guns: But one of them dischargeth a Gun laden with a Ledden Bullet, but it pierceth the Coach, and the Temples of the Bride: She presently falls down, and is reckoned a dead Woman: But Opdorp is seven Leagues distant from Vilvord, whither when she was brought, proceed∣ing to Bruxels, her Head was a dead Carcase, cut in thin pieces, and plainly cold; yet nigh her heart, I noted a luke-warmth and pulse. Likewise a certain Image fell from a high place, on the Crown of a Woman, so as that the whole top of the Scull had depressed the Brain, al∣most two fingers in breadth: She was reckoned to have been dead, yet there was a slender pulse in both Arms, six houres after, and it was noted by many.

A certain studious man, being strong, strikes another sitting at the Table, with his fist, a∣bout the orifice of the Stomach, who presently fell down with a foaming mouth, and being [unspec 4] lifted up by us into his Seat, he was forthwith deprived of Pulse, and before Grace was read, his whole Body was cold as Ice. A Carter being thrust thorow about the mouth of the Sto∣mach, with a Dagger, with a foaming mouth, presently dieth; he is also deprived of all Pulse, and heat.

Therefore under a humble Censure of the Church; I will declare another Paradox. Al∣though [unspec 5] life be a token of the Soul, and this life be every where; yet, as by the cutting of a finger, or foot, the Soul doth not fly away, nor the life of the whole Body; neither yet can the Soul or life be divided into parts, that the Soul in its whole integral part may be any way di∣vidable, and that death seemes to be near, through the hurting of a more noble member: In the mean time, it is certain, that the life in the member cut off, doth presently perish, al∣though a part of the Soul be not therefore taken away from the whole Body: Therefore it is manifest from thence, that the Soul doth not sit centrally in whatsoever part there is an ope∣ration and presence of life: And it must needs be, that the Seat of the Soul is in some place, as it were its proper and central mansion: For from thence it dismisseth its lightsom and vital Beames, by the Archeus the Instrument of the vital light: Because the Soul it self is a certain light, and clear substance in the minde; but in other Souls, it is indeed a light, yet not a substance: As elsewhere concerning the Original of Forms.

The Creator (to whom be all honour) hath kept a certain progresse from a like thing, who instructs us in the Seat-royal of the Soul, that from the more grosse things we may consi∣der [unspec 6] things more abstracted: For in a Tree (an Argument is peculiarly drawn from a Tree, by reason of the prerogative of the Tree of Life) is seen a Root, the vital beginning of it self: For truly, in the Root as it were in a Kitchin, a forreign juyce of the Earth is cocted, altered, is alienated from its antient simplicity of water, and undergoes the disposition of a vital Fer∣ment there placed: But being cocted, it is distributed from thence, that it may more and more be constrained, and become like, according to the necessity of every further Cook∣room, which hath established Lawes for the Spirit inhabiting. So in the middle Trunck of the Body of man, is the Stomach, which is not onely the Sack or Scrip, or the pot of the Food; but in the Stomach, especially in its Orifice or upper mouth, as it were in a Central point and Root, is the Principle of life, of the digestion of meats, and the disposing of the same unto life, most evidently established.

For whatsoever natural Phylosophers have ever thorowly weighed concerning the heart that is of great moment; they, will they, nill they, they have made all that common to the [unspec 7] Stomach. So as Cardiogmus or the griping biting of the heart, Cardialgia or the pain of the heart, have been withdrawn from the Stomach, by a transchangeative and borrowed name; and likewise swoonings, faintings, and epileptical insults or fits of the Falling sickness, and those things which do seem to carry the Rains of life, do take their original from the mouth of the Stomach: For in bloud-letting that is daily seen; wherein very often, presently after a Vein is opened, giddinesses of the Head, and likewise dulnesses and obscurings of the sight are manifestly felt to spring from the Stomach, and to cease again, as oft as the finger is laid upon the opened Vein, and it being removed from thence, the same Sumptoms are again felt to arise from the Stomach, and to be stirred up from thence. Again, the Authority of the Word confirmeth my Paradox, in the entrance, while it asketh, What Cogitations have [unspec 8] ascended unto your heart? It doth not say, they descend unto your heart: As neither what Cogitations are bred or do arise from your heart: For therefore also, many times, the Sto∣mach is called by the name of the heart, when as Adulteries and sins are reckoned to arise from the heart.

For every Cogitation, in its first Original, ought to spring from elsewhere than in the heart: For the Pulse and vehement and uncessant motion of the heart would have forbid that thing: [unspec 9] Because that Cogitation or thinking ought to be made in rest or quiet. As oft therefore as Cogitation is attributed to the heart, that manner of speaking is according to the acceptation of the vulgar, by taking the heart for the Seat of the Soul. And although the necessity of Seeds in Plants do tend further, unto a multiplicity of Functions, and consequently also doth proceed into the diversities of kindes of parts, yet the vegetative power, doth not therefore depart out of its antient, and vegetal Bride-bed, wherein it hath once fixt its Seat, neither doth it wander, or divide it self by reason of the dispersing of the Kitchins. That thing happens after a more formal and manifest manner, after that the disposition of the Seed hath adorned a Beast-like figure, and hath ordained a variety of members: For then the sensitive and mo∣tive Soul is given, and it is not stablished in any other place than in the Root, wherein it af∣terwards prepareth all Fewel or nourishment for it self.

Indeed, in speaking properly, and understanding distinctly, there is not a certain vegeta∣tive [unspec 10] Soul in Plants or bruit Beasts; but there is a certain vital power, and as it were a fore-runner of the Soul: But the sensitive Soul takes into it self the Rains of that Archeal power, and that vital fore-running dispositive power doth melt in the Archeus, and afterwards sub∣mits it self unto the sensitive Soul: For the Head being as yet occupied with an animal Discourse, or the heart stirred with continual Pulses, and working uncessantly in the framing of vital Spirits, and in transplanting of venal bloud into Arterial bloud, are not fit Instruments for the Soul of a Beast: But when as this findeth an Inn prepared for it in the Root, it there resideth, remaineth, nor doth wander from thence to another place.

For in very deed, the heart is a servant to the stomach, while it all its life long onely em∣ployeth [unspec 11] it self in framing of the vital Spirits: For the entrance of the life of a very tender young, begins from sucking, and sleep, and for some time so continues: Both which things do happen in the stomach: where indeed the vital Spirits are established and preserved by the soul in the Root, in which the same soul doth for the future, hope especially to be nou∣rished, cherished, fewelled, and increase:

For it was never the study or office of the soul, to wander or passe from place to place, that it may chuse out a Bride-bed for it self; because that which is directed by an understanding [unspec 12] in-erring, is stablished in its own and certain seat, from the beginning of life: And there is that Center designed from the beginning of Creation, for the original of seeds, with a com∣mand and tye, that the soul doth not change its seat, or enquire after strange places, as it were more commodious for it self: For he who rules all things strongly, and disposeth of them sweetly, hath known the bounds or ends of every appointment. There is indeed in the brain of a living Creature, a motive virtue, and sensitive shop: But not, that therefore, the soul be∣ing shaken from its original and primary seat, shall wander from its radical Inn (designed un∣to it by the Creator) unto the Head: For the faculties and functions of the sensitive soul, are indeed distributed into a plurality of parts. In the mean time, the soul it self, remains unshaken from its antient place, where it was first bound and tied: For neither is it divided by reason of the diversities of offices; because it perfects all things by the ministring Organ of an Archeus, and it being as it were every where present, is an assistant to that vital beam.

First of all, it is easily perceived, that all the force of the first conceptions, and every en∣tring and primitive stirring of disturbances doth happen about the mouth of the stomach: For [unspec 13] if a Gun send forth a noyse unexspectedly, a shaking about the mouth of the stomach is per∣ceived by the same stroak: so, if a sorrowful Message be brought on a sudden, a sudden and speedied alteration is no where felt, but in that Central Inn of the soul.

So that persons against their will, and at unawares have before me, there placed the desi∣rable [unspec 14] Inn of the soul: which Inn, because it is first in duration, discourse, motion, and the act of feeling of the external senses; so it denotes, yea convinceth, that the original Inn of the soul is in the same place: And that thing hath seemed to me most exceeding necessary to be known for the curing of Diseases, as I shall demonstrate in its place, concerning Diseases.

For very many have remained without hope of recovery; because Remedies have been applied to a member appointed for functions, but not to the Root from whence the errour [unspec 15] sprang: For the Habitation and Court where the edicts are formed, being unknown, Medicines have been rashly administred unto the places of executions: For the place of the sensitive soul being unknown, it hath been unknown hitherto, that that soul doth there receive the primitive blemish, disturbance, and contagion of most Diseases: And in the same place,

Medicines ought to be appropriated, if from the Root, a Medicine for Diseases is to be ap∣pointed: wherein surely, they have most grievously erred hitherto.

At least, the first motions or assaults which are not in our power, are long since admitted to happen about the Orifice of the stomach, and to climbe upwards to the Head: But it is a [unspec 16] certain thing, that every first motion doth begin from the Center, and so that the Center of the soul is wheresoever the beginning of conceptions is felt: But those are called forces, which are not in our power; because they are the first conceits of the sensitive soul, as yet out of order, and not yet diligently examined by the command of the minde.

But that which I write touching the seat of the sensitive soul, I understand also for the im∣mortal [unspec 17] minde: For truly, the minde hath not a subject more near and like to it self, where∣in it may be entertained, than that vital light which is called the sensitive soul, wherein in∣deed the minde is involved, and tied by the bond of life, by the Command of God. But the sensitive soul perishing, through the annihilating of it self, the minde cannot any longer sub∣sist in the Body; and therefore it hastens to the Being of Beings, that it may passe unto places appointed for it.

Therefore the radical Bride-bed of the sensitive soul is in the vital Archeus of the stomach, and it stands and remains there for the whole life-time: Not indeed, that the sensitive soul [unspec 18] is entertained in the stomach, as it were in a Sack, Skin, membrane, pot, prison, little Cell, or bark: neither is it comprehended in that seat, in manner of Bodies enclosed within a purse; but after an irregular manner, it is centrally in a point, and as it were in the very undividable middle of one membranous thickness: And it is in a place, nevertheless, not plainly locally.

But because every Soul is a light given by the Father of Lights, and Creator of things; but [unspec 19] I have proved elsewhere that lights are immediately in place, and mediately in a placed Air: So also the sensitive Soul is in a place or seat, whereof I write at this present: But the minde, seeing it is a lightsome substance, it pierceth a created light, which is the sensitive soul, and this likewise pierceth the minde, and blunts it with its contagion of the corruption of Adam: of which, in the Book of long life, concerning the entrance of death into man. [unspec 20] Therefore the frail, mortal sensitive soul, is a meer vital light, given by the Father of Lights, neither is it declarable after another manner or word; seeing that in the whole World, it hath not its like, besides the light of a Candle: the which, because it burns, may be compared to a spark, yet onely by an analogical, and much unlike similitude, and as it were by the more outward husk.

Therefore indeed, that sensitive soul, although it be locally present, and be entertained in [unspec 21] a place; yet it is not comprehended in a place, otherwise, than as the flame of a Candle is kindled in an exhalation; and the light in that flame, is as it were life in the aforesaid soul: yet vital lights are never parching, but are separated by as many diversities as there are dif∣ferences of souls. And from thence is God called by S. James, the Father of Lights.

Therefore the heat of things soulified, is not of the Fountain-light of the soul; but a heat∣ing light of the vital life; and so it is the product of life; but not the life it self: And [unspec 22] therefore also it is emulous of a Sunny light; even as in a Fish, the vital light is actually cold, because it is of the nature of the Moon: And for that cause, God made onely two and suf∣ficient lights, for the life of sublunary things: yet the light of which light, or the souls themselves, are the subjects of inherency: And they are altogether neither Creatures, between a substance and an accident; because of the Country of the intelligible world: Therefore in the sensitive soul (for neither ever elsewhere in frail things) as it were a spiritual light, made by the Father of Lights, is the Immortal minde conjoyned, and the which also, by the hand of the Almighty, every where present, or by an Angel, is co-knit unto the sensitive soul, by the bond of life, that is, of a vital light: which is an unseparable property of the aforesaid light.

But the immortal minde it self, is a clear or lightsome, incorporeal substance, immediate∣ly shewing forth the Image or likeness of its God, because it hath received the same engra∣ven [unspec 23] on it, in creating, or in the very instant of enlivening or quickning: For both souls are created at once, and conjoyned by God, who will never attribute his own Honour of Crea∣tor unto any Creature. But before the fall of Adam, there was not a sensitive soul in man; but by what meanes or after what manner, that, together with death, hath descended at once into humane nature, that shall be shewed in its own place. At least by the coming of the sensi∣tive soul, death hath entred, and the corruption of our whole nature, and the Majesty and Integrity of our former nature was obliterated or blotted out.

For truly, while the minde did immediately perform the offices of life, neither was the sensitive soul as yet present, immortality was also present, neither had beast-like darkness occupied the understanding.

And so man indeed suffered Ship-wrack in his own nature, and that an unrestorable one: but by the new birth, under the calamities of tribulations, ma••••s exalted in a far more excel∣lent [unspec 25] manner, while from the image of God, he is taken, as adopted for his Son. Further∣more, it is altogether necessary, that every motion of the first force, and of the first concepti∣on of the soul, doth happen in the chamber of the soul: which thing, although it be chiefly felt about the Orifice of the stomach, and God be admirable in his works; because indeed, it hath well pleased him to dispose such admirable powers in the membranes of the stomach, womb, [unspec 26] and skins that cover the Brain, because they do bear before them as it were a certain image of a Common-wealth; yet I have found the Spleen readily to serve for the ferment of the sto∣mach, and for the Sun, Cocter, and Directer thereof. Therefore I have decreed, to call the conspiracy of both Bowels, the Duumvirate or Sheriff-dome. For although the di∣gestive ferment, and the like aids, may seem to shew forth a Family-service of servants; yet the service of houshold-servants in vitals, as it contains a power and strength, so also it promiseth dignity and authority: So that, as in the stomach there are feelings, faintings of the whole body, and most sensible, manifest, and open priviledges of coctions; never∣thelesse, the vital breathing-hole, causing the digestions of so manifold arteries, and so migh∣tily of the stomach, hath commanded, that without a duality, disagreement, or powerful pre∣ferrence, there ought to be made one Family-administration of both Bowels; indeed by di∣vers offices, into one conspiring scope, although both do singularly attend on their own work, therefore also separated in place. Truly, there is one onely endeavour of the Duumvirate, and agreeing, and set harmony of intention. Therefore the neighbouring Spleen doth lay on the stomack without, as if it would nourish the same by a lively co-weaving of arteries:

Not indeed that the arteries do give all force or virtue to the Spleen, but they have them∣selves as Bowels, after the manner of Stars: For although the Stars do borrow their light from [unspec 27] the Sun, yet there is in every one of them his own peculiar property, and strength of acting, which is far most evident in the Moon, about the ebbings, flowings, and overflowings of the Sea.

Be it therefore, that the arteries of the Spleen do supply the place of the Sun; yet the Spleen it self hath obtained a double and native dignity peculiar to it self, although the Family-ser∣vice [unspec 28] of the Heart rejoyceth in the preparing of vital blood and spirit. Therefore the Spleen is the seat of the Archeus, the which seeing he is the immediate Instrument of the sensitive soul, doth determine, or limit or dispose of the vital actions of the soul residing in the sto∣mach: For the sensitive soul doth scarce meditate of any thing without the help of the Ar∣cheus, because it rejoyceth not being abstracted, as doth the minde; the which in its ebbing or going back by an extasie, doth sometimes, and without the props of the Archeus and corporal Air, intellectually contemplate of many and great things. Also in exorbitances of the Ar∣cheus, an aversion, confusion, exorbitancy, and indignation is administred.

And the sensitive soul it self, being as it were the husk of the minde, doth alwayes, will it, [unspec 29] nill it, make use of the Archeus: Hence indeed all foolish madnesses (some whereof onely have been made known) are called praecordial or Midriffe ones, and are ascribed to the place about the short Ribs: the which notwithstanding, do spring from the same seat, and the same fountain of the soul, as it were by the hurting of one onely point.

Also Remedies do scarce materially go without the hedges or bounds of the stomach: [unspec 30] And therefore, they are rare, which are brought thorow, unto the spleen: which thing in the difficulties of a Quartane Ague is plain enough to be seen: For the immortal minde is read to be inspired into Adam, by omnipotency, and that without the Wedlock of the sensitive soul: And that breath of life, he calls a substance: And therefore that is not found to be breathed into bruit Beasts.

Therefore the minde was first of all immediately tied to the Archeus, as to its own Organ or Instrument, the which, therefore it could at its pleasure, daily substitute a-new, [unspec 31] out of the meats, being sufficiently, and alwayes and perpetually alike strong: And from thence to awaken the immortal life, worthy of or meet for it self: For truly, the immortal minde being every where present, did perform all the offices of life immediately by the Archeus (and the which therefore doth borrow his own liveliness from the minde) who also is therefore after some sort, superiour to mortal things, and seemed to be the foster-Child of a more excellent Monarchy, than of a sublunary one. These things were so, before the fall of Adam: But seeing that in the same day of their transgression, they were made guilty of death; a soul subject to death, came unto them, the Vicaresse and Companion of

the minde: To wit, unto whom the minde it self straightway transferred the dispositions of the government of the Body: For at first, there was an immediate Wed-lock of the im∣mortal minde with the Archeus. Presently after the fall, and the stirring up of the sensitive soul, the minde withdrew it ••••lf like a Kernel, into the center of the sensitive soul, whereto it was tied by the bond of life. The minde is not nourished by foods, it could chuse meats for its own Archeus, and prepare them for him, who now is constrained with an unwearied study to watch for his own support of nourishment: And that, by degrees, he lesse and lesse fitly prepares and applies to himself, by reason of the defective duration, and power of the sen∣sitive soul. Thus therefore, I ought to speak concerning the seat of the minde, of the ma∣terial occasion of mortality, and the necessities of Diseases and distemper: For truly, what things are here required, in the Treatise of the entrance of death into humane nature, is de∣monstrated at large, with an explication of that Text: From the North shall evill be stretch∣ed out over all the Inhabitants of the Earth. Therefore, for a Summary: The central place of the Soul, is the Orifice or upper mouth of the stomach, no otherwise, than as the Root of Ve∣getables is the vital place of the same. The minde sitteth in the sensitive soul, whereto it was consequently bound after the fall: But the Brain is the executive member of the can∣ceipts of the soul, as it sits chief over the sinews and muscles, in respect of motion; but in respect of sense or feeling, it possesseth in it self, the faculties of memory, will, and Imagina∣tion: Therefore the stomach failing or being defective, there are palenesses, tremblings, drith's, Consumptions of the flesh and strength, wringings of the Belly or Guts, the Asthma or stoppage of breathing, Jaundises, Palsies, Convulsions, giddinesses of the Head, Apoplexies, &c. For the most famous Physitians do wonder, that oft-times extream defects are over∣come, not otherwise, than by remedies pertaining to the stomach, and that the evil of the sto∣mach doth bring forth Diseases far distant from it self. And the more modern Physitians are amazed, that vulnerary potions should succesfully cure wounds of the joynts: And that ac∣cording to Paracelsus, the Cancer, Wolf, the eating inflamed Ulcer, are cured by a Drink.

Therefore the errour of those that cure the more outward parts that are ill-affected, as if [unspec 33] they were fundamental ones, and they who do translate all healing about the head, it being hurt by the lower parts, proceedeth from hence, by reason of the ignorance of the seat of the Soul, life, and government.