Van Helmont's works containing his most excellent philosophy, physick, chirurgery, anatomy : wherein the philosophy of the schools is examined, their errors refuted, and the whole body of physick reformed and rectified : being a new rise and progresse of philosophy and medicine, for the cure of diseases, and lengthening of life / made English by J.C. ...

But I do not heed the hurtings of Functions for the Essence of a Disease, but the ope∣rative disturbances extended on the Archeus, do I contemplate of, in Diseases. For he doth often die without a sense of action, being hurt, who indeed suddainly falls down, being in the mean time long diseasie; or he that perisheth only by a defect of Nature: Wherefore also, I reckon it among other impertinencies, to have tied up the Essence of Diseases unto the hurtings of the functions, seeing that is accidental and latter to Diseases, but not alwayes a concomitant.

Yea truly, because a voluntary restoring of the enfeebled faculties, doth follow health; hence the Schooles have measured the Essence of a Disease, to owe an unseparable respect [unspec 65] unto the hurting, and things hurting of Functions; So indeed, that these Essences of Diseases should be included therein: Because they have thought, that the whole hinge of healing was rowled about contraries; when as otherwise, it is wholly by accident, if in Dis∣eases, Functions are hurt; otherwise, whoever was he, who denied a Disease not really to be present in the silence of a quartane Ague, the falling sickness, madness, and Gout? When notwithstanding no hurting of Functions is seen? who is he, which doth not now and then observe in a person recovering, greater hindrances of actions and weaknesses, than in the flaming beginning of Diseases? It hath therefore alwaies seemed a blockish thing to me, for a thing to be essentially defined by later and separable effects. And seeing a Disease is primarily made by the Archeus which maketh an assault, (yet by an erring one) certainly the action hereof shall be much nearer into the faculties themselves than into the actions of the same; especially because, as long as the facul∣ties are as yet (in one that is in recovery) as it were vanquished and sore shaken, there are indeed impediments of the faculties present, likewise a hurting and suppression of actions, yet no Disease surviving. And seeing that I have elsewhere sufficiently demon∣strated, that both causes in natural things, do not differ in supposition from the very thing it self constituted: Therefore if a disease should be the cause of the hurting of an action, as the constitutive difference of the same; it should also of necessity be, that a disease it self, is not any thing diverse from an action being hurt; which thing is already manifest to be false. It should also be false, that the cause and the disease, should by the one onely title of the hurter of an action, be undistinctly comprehended, or the Schooles do badly decree, that the hurter of action is the cause of a disease it self. But the hurting of the action, should be the disease, and the action hurt, the symptome it self; for that is also a devise too childish.

For First, A Disease should be a meer being of Reason, mentally arising from a disposition of the tearms of the Cause unto the Effect; To wit, of the Hurter, and the thing Hurt.

And then, an Error is discerned in the definition of a Disease delivered by the Schooles; To wit, That a Disease is a Disposition, primarily hurting an Action: Because it is that which should define the Cause, and not the Disease it self, or the Effect of the Cause.

Thirdly, If a Remedy ought to remove that it self which hurteth the Action; that shall either have a singular Monarchy, whereby it may call forth, and shake off the Hurter it self, or the Remedy shall joyn it self to Nature her self, and that so most unitingly, that their forces being conjoyned, and they being now as it were one united thing, doth set it self in an opposite term, a∣gainst the Hurter it self.

But the first of these is not true. Because the Remedy should be as forreign unto Na∣ture, as is otherwise the Disease it self; by reason of a particular direction, and arbitri∣ment of motions despised by our Archeus. For if it ought to help, it should have a pow∣er superiour to man's Nature, in such a manner, that it should obey, neither the Lawes of things causing Diseases, nor bringing Death: And so it should expel the Cause which bringeth the Disease, as well from a dead Carcass, as from a languishing person. Neither likewise hath the later, place. Because, if the Remedy should be united to nature, radi∣cally, and by an unitive mixture, it should have a priviledge above the condition of nou∣rishment. A hurting therefore of Action it self, doth not fall into the definition of a Dis∣ease: Especially, because a Remedy doth not respect so much the occasional Cause, as the internal efficient Cause of a Disease it self. Whence that Maxime is verified; That Natures themselves are the Curesses of Diseases, as the Effectresses thereof.

They indeed do on both sides confound the Disease with the Symptom, to the destructi∣on of those that are to be cured, seeing curing is seated oftentimes in the removal of the occasional Cause, but never in the removing of Symptomes. And because the removal of the occasional cause is thought to be an eduction or drawing out of matter: nothing but

solutives and diminishers of contents have flourished hitherto; whereas otherwise, a re∣moval of the occasional cause doth more respect a correction or pacifying of the imme∣diate efficient, than a pulling away of the occasional matter: Because after correction, even without a removal of the occasional matter, a cessation, and unhoped for rest, yea, and also a cure, do for the most part, by and by happen: The which in a sympathetical cure doth frequently come to hand, and manifestly appeareth. The Schools therefore have been deceived by artificial things, and because they have thought, that all generation is be∣gun [unspec 59] from the privative point of corruption; They have not known, that that which now flows in the material seminal Beginning of all things whatsoever, hath already, for that very cause, its own real Being, although an unripe one, and that it is hereby, [this some∣thing] in it self, and distinct from any other thing; and that it doth by a natural generation attain only a maturity and illustration in its top or perfection, by reason of a new formal light of acting. Neither indeed, doth the seed therefore differ from its constituted Being, by the efficient internal cause and matter; but only by an individual alterity or inter∣changeable [unspec 60] course of the perfection of a formal light, even as elsewhere concerning the birth of Forms. For the Seed which at first, had need of an exciter, this formal light being obtained, is afterwards for the moving of it self. The Schools also do now and then consider a Disease, even as if it were a neutral product, proceeding or issuing forth [unspec 61] through an activity of the cause, and a reluctancy of our nature: But I know, that as well the formal Agent, as the Patient, in a Disease, are strangers unto us in that act: To wit, I know, that the Falling-sicknesse, is no lesse really in us, at the time of its silence, than when it shall be in its full fit.

I know also, that a Disease is a real substantive Being; but not a relative Being, not a naked disposition of the Agent and thing striving, unto the Patient, as of extreams unto [unspec 62] a mean or middle thing.

Neither lastly, that it is a conformity of proportion or disproportion, between ex∣treams: Although this respect of forming a relation between the Beings of Reason, be nearer than the effect produced.

I know further, that every natural Agent, is born to produce its like, except that which acteth by a Blas (but the power or faculty, as well that locally motive, as alterative, be∣cause it wanted a name, it seemed good to me, to have it called Blas, in the Beginnings of the Physicks or natural Phylosophy.) So the Heaven generates Meteors, not Heavens. And a man, by a voluntary Blas; and likewise the Archeus, by an ideal and seminal Blas, stirs up divers alterations. But a seminal Agent, being inordinate, doth through a strange Blas, bring forth a Monster, which is properly a Disease: For although a Disease, accor∣ding [unspec 63] to its causes, be natural; yet in respect of us, it ceaseth not to be against nature, as well, in as much as it began from a forreign Blas, as that it carrieth a hostile Blas, and raiseth it up from it self: And therefore, neither doth this Monster generate a Young like it self, unless it by serments doth transfer its own seminal contagion, and so causeth Dis∣eases in others by accident. But as to that which belongs to the efficient cause of Disea∣ses; There is in an abortive Birth, a certain efficient cause bred within (as is a Cataract [unspec 64] in the eye, the stone in man, a Feverish matter) the which, although it be called by the Schools, the efficient, immediate, and containing cause of a Disease; yet it is only the oc∣casional cause of Diseases, and external in respect of the life, wherein every Disease alway is: And therefore neither can such a visible matter, not only obtain the reason of a true efficient; but neither also can it be of the intrinsecal matter of a Disease it self, to be any part thereof. It remains therefore the conciting and occasional cause of Diseases: Be∣cause the efficient and seminal matter, if it ought immediately to reach and pierce the vi∣tal [unspec 65] faculties, and so also the life; even as also in a point it is altogether necessary, that it doth contain a resembling mark of life; Even so that also, that thing is perpetual in se∣minal Diseases, that a Disease, as it is never in a dead carcass, so it cannot but be in a living Body.

Furthermore, of efficient causes, there is a certain one, which is and remaineth exter∣nal: [unspec 66] As a sword, having obtained an impulsive force, maketh a Disease in the divided mat∣ter, which is called a wound: After the like manner, is the fretting of the bladder, which is made by the Stone; For although some external efficients, have their own seminal Be∣ginnings whereof they are generated (as the Stone) yet in respect of the Disease which they produce, they want Seeds, and therefore are they external and forreign to the Dis∣ease it self. But internal occasionals have a Seed, whereby they nourish the Disease stirred up by them, and are also oft-times shut up or finished in their being made: As is manifest in a Fever, an Imposthume, &c.

In the next place, there are occasional efficients, which do defile by a continual and fermental propagation: As Ulcers, the Jaundice, &c. And there are internal occasionals, which do now and then sleep a long time: As in the Falling-sickness, Gout, Madness, Asthma, Fevers, &c. Of internal occasional causes also, some do uncessantly labour, that they may estrange the matter of our Body from the Communion of life: Whereto if a Ferment shall come (which thing, Hippocrates in Diseases, calls divine) co-meltings of the Body are made. But in a Fever the efficient occasional matter, according to its double property, doth stir up the Archeus unto a propulsion or driving out, for the consuming of it self: Wherefore, neither doth it leave any other product behind it, unless a new Idea shall from the Archeus being provoked, spring forth by accident: In like manner, as the Dropsie followeth Fevers, &c. But let pains, drowsinesses, watchings, weaknes∣sses, &c. be symptoms and dispositions; so also, a strange seminal efficient doth beget the [unspec 67] Stone, and there ceaseth, although it thenceforth stirs up troubles every moment, and new motions. But the product of the Stone are excoriations or gratings off of the skin, and new Diseases, which are Monsters unlike their Parent. For in speaking properly, the ge∣neration of the Stone is not a Disease; and much more the Stone it self, which in it self [unspec 68] is a natural composition, but in respect of us, diseasie: Wherefore also in the Chamber∣pot or Urinal, and without the life, it is generated by its own causes of putrifaction or stonifying: And so, it is a monstrous and irregular Disease; because it is that which is bred in us by accident, and without the life.

In the next place, as soon as the effect or product in its being made, hath lost its occa∣sional [unspec 69] efficient, that product is no longer the very connexion of both causes, or the for∣mer Disease; but it hath its own causes, more latter than the connexion of the first cau∣ses. For so an Imposthume hath brought forth an Ulcer; but this weeps a poysonsom li∣quor; this in the next place, doth oft-times excoriate, changeth the former Ulcer, or [unspec 70] raiseth up a new one: But it nothing pertains unto the causing Ulcer, whether its liquor doth afterwards ulcerate or not; because there is not in it an effective intention to pro∣duce an Ulcer by the liquor: Because the corrupt Sanies or liquor it self, is the product of the Ulcer causing it, which received its effective and seminal intention in its own es∣sence; but not for the propagation of a new Ulcer, which is therefore unto it by acci∣dent. The Stone also, is the product of its constituting causes, which it encloseth and terminates in it self: Because the causes thereof being brought unto the end of their ef∣fecting, do cease in the product, and are shut up as if they were buried: Although that Stone be an occasional means, whereunto the generation of a new Stone happens by growing: In the mean time, it is to the Stone by accident, if it produce other Diseases more cruel than it self; yea, than death it self. But in the Dropsie, the efficient Archeus of the Reins, in the conception of an Idea begotten by his own perturbation, closeth up the Kidneys, and a Dropsie is made: Yet the former efficient doth not cease, even unto the strangling of the person. In that Dropsie being caused, and the water being produ∣ced and dismissed, there is not a further intention to produce any other thing.

After another manner, oft-times, the product of a Disease, seeing it is an in-bred Mon∣ster, it hath an occasional propagative faculty from the property of the efficient Ar∣cheus, not enclosed or bound up in the product; but free in the Organs of life. Whence indeed other products do now and then successively spring forth: At least-wise, the lavish∣ments of the faculties and life, ought not so much to be accounted the products of Dis∣eases, as their ordained fruits, and symptoms, and the periods of these. Neither in the mean time, is that a Disease by a less priviledge, which is produced by a diseasie ferment, than was the Disease, the Parent of that Product: Neither indeed doth it more sluggish∣ly corrupt some vital thing or part, by strange efficients being received, than that, in the primary efficient of whose action, the Disease it self is. But the Schools do suppose a con∣trariety of the Disease, with health, with life; and again, with the Remedy it self. There∣fore [unspec 71] unto one term, they apply many contrary ones, contrary to the nature of relatives, and contrary to their own Maxim; That one contrary is said to be as many wayes as the other. For the doctrine of contraries in Remedies, standing; health likewise ought to come forth of Medicine, as a chick out of an egge: Or seeing that contraries ought to reduce each other unto nothing, health ought to proceed from a Disease, even as otherwise weak∣ness [unspec 72] proceeds from a Disease: For if a Remedy be contrary to a Disease, verily the fa∣culties of our life, cannot be contrary to a Disease; and by consequence, a Disease shall not be able to hurt our faculties, or the actions of these. And the Schools have erred, while they contend, that in a Crisis or judicial Sign, a Disease doth in its whole course, sustain a single combat with our faculties. But if a Disease be contrary to our faculties,

and to the Remedy it self: at least wise, they shall incongruously apply cold things in a Fever, they being applied no lesse to the vital faculty, than to the Disease: Yea, if from a contrariety of disposition, a Disease be bred; our action ought not wholly to depend on the Spirit making the assault, but on the meer cause of the Disease: and the which there∣fore, seeing it should have the principle of its motion in it self, it ought to operate as well in a dead carcass, as in a living Body; and the whole skirmish should be only between the dispositions of strange accidents suppressing each other: Of which strife, the life it self should be only a hateful spectator, without discommodity to it self. What other thing is this, than to have feigned a sluggish and cold vital Philosophy? and that the Physitians or Curers of Fevers, are cold? What if a Disease doth stand in a quality, whose contra∣ry warriour they will have to be known by sense, and elementary: why therefore are so un∣certain, weak, and slow Remedies of Diseases devised? Why are there so manifest and ready Tokens, Remedies, and Simples of manifest contrary qualities, boasted of in the Schooles? Therefore according to mee, a disease is a substantial Being, begotten by Ar∣cheal [unspec 73] causes, as well materially as efficiently. But heat and cold, and that sort of sign∣ed Concomitants, I call fruits and symptoms, far different from the produced Diseases: For a Disease is oft-times furiously moved against us, wherein many symptoms do inter∣pose; which Disease notwithstanding, doth oftentimes cease without a product: As is ma∣nifest in intermitting Fevers: For neither doth a new Disease arise from thence; But on∣ly nature intends to shake off a tedious guest; under which endeavour, fruits and symp∣toms are produced; drowsinesses, heats, colds, pains, watchings, disquietnesses, vomits, weaknesses, &c. Elsewhere also, a Disease doth often convert the matter of its Inne: To wit, while the Archeus being stirred up by an occasional ferment, doth bring forth a new product: whether in the mean time, the former Disease be shut up in the term of the product, or not. Neither doth a Disease also seldom occasionally produce a Monster un∣like to it self: While a Fever doth cause the Dropsie, a Cataract, Scirrhus, &c. because they are the products of Diseases by accident: To wit, whereof a new Idea from the Ar∣cheus is the Mother: as shall appear beneath in its place. But weaknesse is a universal Fruit of Diseases, the Chamber-maid of these. The which indeed is no other thing, than [unspec 74] a disposition following a diminution of the strength or faculties: And it is either total, by reason of the afflictings of a notable or noble part: It happens also, through an adhe∣rency of a diseasie occasion, unto some solid part; Whence the Archeus being at length the extinct, a blasting of that part, and presently after a death of the whole Body, do also proceed: Or weaknesse is particular, by reason of a particular Blas, affecting some mem∣ber by its animosity or wrathfulnesse: For so from the stomack is there a giddinesse of the Head, Head-ach, &c. as from the Womb, the parts do diversly and miserably languish by an Aspect: Which things surely, are the symptoms and fruits of the Archeus, but not the Diseases thereof: the which otherwise, do naturally lay up their own efficients in themselves: Even as elsewhere, concerning the action of Government.

In the next place, the product of a Disease, differs from a symptom, in this, as this is a fruit: it requires indeed a mitigation from the Archeus himself; but not a curing as it is by it self: Because it likewise vanisheth together with the Disease. But I find no men∣tion of the product of Diseases in the Schools; but it is either confounded with a symp∣tom, or is attributed to a certain new distemperature, and a new aflux of humours. Others also are wont to dedicate Diseases to the parts containing; the causes likewise, to the parts contained: but to banish symptoms into the spirit making the assault: Being [unspec 75] in the first place, badly mindful, that they attribute the heat and cold of the first qualities, as Diseases, to humours contained. In the next place, if a Disease be in the part con∣taining, and the cause in the thing contained; If the spirit in-bred in us, shall not move or stir up the cause and the disease, whereby I pray you shall it be done? what shall beget [unspec 76] a disease by a cause, if not the spirit? For as wrath, bashfulnesse, and agony, do heat by a Blas; so fear, grief, and sorrow, do cool, without the aid of humours. But Pepper and heating things, do heat living creatures; but not dead carcasses: as neither do Cantha∣rides, Scar-wort, or Smallage, embladder these: But Causticks do even wast a dead car∣casse; and that, not through the effect of their own heat, but only by virtue of a burning Salt, which resolves the solid parts into a Salt, without heat: To wit, even as Calx vive, doth resolve Cheese into a muscilage. Causticks therefore, or searing Remedies, do ge∣nerate an Eschar in a live Body, but not in a dead carcasse; but they do resolve this, by a simple resolution of their Salt: But because in a live Body, the Archeus is also inflamed within, an Eschar is produced from both Agents: To wit, the Caustick and the Archeus. Lastly, the fire doth indifferently burn, as well a living as a dead Body; and more speedi∣ly,

the live Body it self: Because the fire consumes from without, by burning; and the spirit it self through its inflaming, becomes caustical or burning within. Therefore, from a fourfold handy-craft operation; to wit, of the Fire, Pepper, a Vesicatory, and Caustick, [unspec 77] the remarkable things which follow, do voluntarily issue.

1. That the efficient heat of heating things, is ours. In Pepper therefore, there is only an oc∣casional exciting heat.

2. That a Fever is not heat effentially, but it hath things proper to it, as well cold as heat, from the property of an alterative Blas: And that not efficiently, but only occasionally, inciting∣ly, and accidentally: But the Archeus alone is the efficient of heat and cold. For neither is a Feverish matter in a Body, otherwise hot, now made cold, then afterwards hot, that the whole Body may be cold and hot at the successive change thereof: But they are the works and signatures of life; not the properties of diseasie Seeds in the matter, but meer pessions of the Body, thus moved by a Blas, from the heat and cold of the Archeus; And therefore, neither do they any longer happen in a dead carcass, as neither after a Disease obtains the Victory, neither also when the Disease ceaseth; the occasional matter in the mean time remaining.

3. That the very thing, which worketh heat in us, doth efficiently also produce cold: Not in∣deed privatively, in respect of heat; because cold is a real and actual Blas of the Archeus.

4. That no curing is made by contraries, as neither by reason of like things; because a Dis∣ease consisteth essentially in the seminal Idea, and in the matter of the Archeus; but at least∣wise, substances do not admit of a contrariety in their own essence.

5. That a Disease is primitively overcome, by extinguishing of the Idea, or a removal of the essential matter thereof. 2. Originally, by allaying and pacifying of the disturbed Archeus. And 3. From a latter thing; to wit, if the occasional matter be taken away, which stirs up a motive and alterative Blas of entertainment, that the Idea or Disease, may be efficiently made.

6. That both the inward causes, connexed in the Archeus, is the very substantial Disease, having in it, its proper root: But the occasional matter, however it be received in the Body, is alwayes external, because it is not of the inward root and essence of a Disease.

7. That Symptoms are accidents by accident, breaking forth by excitation or stirring up, ac∣cording to the variety of every Receiver: And it is rather a wandring error, or fury of our Powers.

8. That the Archeus, which formed us in the Womb, doth also direct, govern, move all things during life. Therefore occasional causes are perceived only in the Archeus: who afterwards, ac∣cording to the disturbance thereby conceived, doth bring forth his own Idea's, which immediate∣ly have a Blas, whereby they move, direct, and change, and finish, whatsoever happens in health and Diseases. But the parts of the Body, as well those containing, as those contained, and likewise the occasional causes of Diseases, of themselves, are dead and idle; neither can they move them∣selves, or any other thing; Seeing nothing is moved by it self, which is not by it self, and pri∣marily vital; except weight, which naturally falleth downwards.

9. That the products and effects of Diseases, are seminal generations, so depending on the Seeds, that they do shew forth the properties of these.

10. That heat, cold, heates, &c. seeing they are not the proper causes of a Disease, nor the true products of Diseases, but only the symptomatical accidents and signatures of Diseases; there∣fore also, neither do they subsist by themselves, but they do so depend on Diseases, that they depart to∣gether with them, like a shadow: Because they are the errors of a vital light, or an erroneous Blas stirred up from Diseases.

11. That Diseases are seminal Beings (except extrinsecal ones, wounds, a bruise or stroke, burning, &c.) and therefore effects of the Archeus resulting in a true action, from the occasio∣nals of the exciter, accidentally sprung up in an Archeal error of our Powers.

12. That, although without the will of a living Creature, contraries should be found in na∣ture; yet by these, there should be no possible restauration of the hurt faculties, as neither a pa∣cifying

of the Areheus; and by consequence no curing, if that be even true, That Natures themselves are the Physitiannesses of Diseases, and that the Physitian is their Minister.

Truly that thing is proved by the Fire; the which, by reason of the most intense cold∣ness of the Aire (which I have elsewhere proved to be far more cruel than the cold of the Water) doth the more strongly flame and burn: So far is it, that Fire should be exstin∣guished by cold, which is falsly reputed its contrary: And moreover, neither have the Schooles known, that Fire is not extinguished by Water, because it is cold, moist, or contrary to it; but by reason of choaking onely: The which we daily see in our Furnaces. For as the Fire is momentany, and connexed unto it self by a continual thred of exhalati∣ons; hence it is stifled almost in one only moment: for so the water, because it is fluid, enters into the pores of the burning matter, and by stopping them up, doth suffocate or quench the Fire; so also a Mettal or Glasse, being fired, and burning bright, do shine long in the most cold bottom of the Water; and in the mean time, a Coal being fired is choak∣ed in an instant, under the Water: Because the pores thereof are presently stopped. Therefore Copper burning bright, is sooner extinguished than Silver, and Silver than Gold. But Glasse being fired, because it wants pores, shines longer under the Water, than a like quantity of Gold: Yea hot Water doth sooner quench Fire than cold; be∣cause it sooner pierceth the pores. Therein also, they have remained dull; that they con∣sidered [unspec 78] our heat alwayes, by making a comparison of it with Fire: For although the Fire be a Being of Nature, yet because it was directed by the most High, for the uses of Mortals, that it might enter into Nature as a Destroyer, and might be as it were an arti∣ficial Death; therefore it prosecutes its own artificial ends, but hath not any thing in its self, which may be vital or seminal: There is therefore, no Fire in Nature, if it hath not first arose unto a due degree for a Destroyer; wherein it is nothing, or little profita∣ble for the speculation of Medicine.

Surely, our heat is not graduated, and therefore neither is it fiery, neither doth it pro∣ceed from the Fire as being weakened or diminished; but it is the heat of a formal light, [unspec 79] and therefore also vital; neither therefore doth it subsist in its last or highest degree, even as the fire doth: For it admits of a latitude, and its degree is made to vary according to the provocation if its Blas. For although it be from a formal light, and in that respect doth live; yet through a Blas, it doth oft-times ascend higher, or is pressed lower, as well in healthy persons as in sick folk.

In the next place, it more highly deviates through furies, and then it (as burnt up) un∣cloaths it self of a vital light, and assumes a Caustical or burnt Alcali; which thing is seen in moist and compressed Hay, where Fire voluntarily ariseth. So in Escarrie effects, our heat being forgetful of its former life, passeth into a degree of fire: For through a congresse of lightsome beames, and a degeneration of the salt of the Spirits, even as in Hay, true Fire is bred, and would burn us, if the Archeus should expect this end of the Tragedy before death. Our heat indeed is in the Fire, as the number of Two is in the number of Forty; yet the Fire is not in our heat: And so, neither can our heat be called fiery, as neither is the number of Two the number of Forty.

But besides, a diseasie occasion doth sometimes burthen with its weight alone, and by its hateful presence; such as is that of a hateful guest. Afterwards from the more mild be∣ginnings, a porous quality oft-times increaseth or groweth, being of the order of Tastes.

Thirdly, Or at length it stinketh.

Fourthly, It snatcheth up a strange ferment.

And Lastly, it threatens destruction unto us through the contagion of an unluckie poy∣son; and the cruel seminal occasion of Diseases either comes unto us from far, or ariseth from within. It often-times also degenerates in its last qualities, which the Schooles have neglected, because (as being content with their first humours) they have fallen asleep. There is something, I say, of a hurtful chaffe separated from the guiltless vitals, and the co-mixed occasion of a Disease floateth among the good nourishments, and hath even more toughly mirried, adhered to, and chosen its local bride-bed in the same. But it on both sides, stirs up the hostile properties of diseasie seeds, by variously sporting in their Innes. The Archeus therefore is not affected by heat and cold, but from an excelling qua∣lity, and strange fellowship of a taste, and fashions the seminal Idea of a Disease. And I wonder that the Schooles of the Greeks, do profess Hippocrates to be their standard-defen∣der; yet that they have despised this hing of healing in him, and have even sunk themselves into meer heats, and the foolish wedlocks of qualities. For a Disease according to Hip∣pocrates,

is made of a good, or before-condemned liquor, being turned into an excre∣ment.

Therefore I do truly pardon this (as yet) undistinction of that Age; and therefore I call those superfluities, not the Diseases themselves, but the occasional Causes of these; [unspec 81] For an excrement being vitiated in its own, or the last Kitchins of Digestions, or stick∣ing the longer elsewhere, through the delay of its slownesse, is first accused of sloath, and afterwards, through the activity of the place of its residence, abhorring it, as a trouble∣som guest is corrupted, from that Title, as it is destitute of the Balsame of Life: For our Archeus-Faber, or master-workman, seeing he is never idle without blame, neither is ever destitute of a local exchanging ferment; therefore by a continual heat and warmth, he doth more and more disturb excrements bred within, or brought thither from else∣where, and shakes them into their appointed ends. Therefore, neither can any excre∣ment long remain in its former state. It is also altogether to be despaired of, that Nature should ever receive that again for a true citizen, which was once abhorred by her; or againe adopt it, by entring into a reconciliation (such as is the fiction, that of Phlegme Blood is made, of burnt venal Blood, yellow Choler, and of this, a leekie aeruginous or [unspec 82] cankered Choler; and at length, a melancholly or black coloured humour) for Nature cannot but alter a forreign contained guest, which of its own condition is alterable, and promote it unto its own ends: And if that shall happen within the Innes of its own di∣gestion, the excrement shall be far more mild, than if it shall be once brought unto others Cottages, and out of its own limits. Then indeed, that adulterous fruit, and Young, ap∣plied to, or placed in that part, is refused, as a strange, ominous, and tumultuary enemy; into whom therefore the strange ferment of another harvest (from the necessity of an un∣quiet alteration) is introduced: Whence of things retained, which are at first, simply troublesome, are hurtful things made, and at length the retained things or excre∣ments are transchanged: Wherein, if a notable savour be not, it doth at leastwise, for the most part, presently arise, being designed by Hippocrates, in the place cited, for a diseasie signature. For as long as a nourishable liquor is restrained by the bridle of the Balsame of Nature, it of right enjoyes the savours of blood, and assimilable nourishment, all things are in a good state; but it being once divorced from the Archeus, it presently also assumes a forreign disposition; So also a savour, and through the agitation of dayes, doth varie the degrees of its malignity: That indeed is the sharp, bitter, and soure, from which the old man doth search out by his oracles, almost all Diseases to spring. For this al∣though in its quantity it be very little in weight, light, and scarce perceivable by the sight; yet it is the true occasion of a Disease; But a Disease it self sits more inwardly, to wit, in the vital Beginnings, and those more active and commanding, than those things which are called Excrements, do. For every seminal Disease, and that which is cherished by an occasional cause, as it began from a being immediately sensitive, and the subject of con∣cupiscence, which is full of Passions, and perturbations, and inordinacies; so also it hath its seat in no other thing, than in the Fountain, Prince, and Ruler of all motions: Yet by degrees it strives not with one onely weapon of malignity, but its More or Root being defiled, doth also occupy the part it self, and likewise deprive it of the continuation and communion of Life, if besides, it doth not burden it with the hurt of its impression, or the filth of a ferment being drawn, in a similar part, it doth not threaten its extinction.

A Disease therefore begins from the matter of the Archeus, as it rageth in us by a for∣reign Idea, from a conceived injury, which it judgeth that occasional Causes hath done it. [unspec 83] But let the concomitant action, and that which results from the proper exorbitancy of its efficient Cause (as the head-ach, doatage, &c.) be the Symptome: But whatsoever Springs are caused by a Disease, or by reason of Pain, the Cramp, the Government of the parts, or a fermental Action, if that do really subsist in its own Root, that is the Product of the Disease.

But of Products, some are ultimate effects, left by a Disease, as a Scirihus, or drop∣sie after a Feaver; or they do break forth, in its being made; As the pissing of muscilage [unspec 84] or slimie matter by those that have the Stone: The which, do neither meditate of the propagation of another evil, as neither of a Diseasie matter, or of after products: These again are like to their Causers, because they are those, which from the contagion of a fer∣ment, do creep farther; even as is familiar with the Scab, Leprosie, Lues Venerea or Pox, &c. But others by proceeding inwards do wholy enlarge themselves, and gene∣rate after an irregular manner: As an Apnaea or shortnesse of Breath, Convulsion, &c. from the Womb or Stomack. So Wringings of the Bowels, the Diarrhea or Flux, Hemo∣rhoides or Piles, Dyscenteries or Bloody-fluxes, and other evils of that sort, do proceed,

as being made by sharp or soure things: Yea the seed of Diseases being at quiet, by in∣tervals, some unaccustomed and dis-continual thing is budded forth from the hidden se∣minary of the Archeus: Such as is the Falling-sicknesse, the Gout, Madnesse, &c.

Truly in all these things, there is a manifest Errour of the Schooles, which teach, That [unspec 85] whole Nature is governed by a Ruler, or a created Understanding, not erring, knowing all ends, and for the sake of these, acting after a most excellent manner. For truly, it is not to be doubt∣ed, but that a Wound might be healed or closed, without the Tumor, Pain, corrupt Pus, and Inflammation of its Lips: But that a Thorn may be drawn out of the Finger, with greater brevity, than that the Finger should therefore arise into a corrupt mattery Apo∣steme: For the fat or grease of an Hare, being annointed on it, doth extract the Thorne in one Night: Meanes are not wanting to the Archeus, whereby he might perform that very thing, safely and quickly (even as he doth, in some, of his own accord) but that our Archeus is subject to any kind of Passions, as if he did conceive childish indignations, from the least hurting of the Body. No wonder therefore, that the sublunary being of Na∣ture, by no means subjecting it self to Justice, doth yeeld to, or fall under its own inordi∣nate Passions: When as also, the whole man, whereof the intellectuall mind is President, doth exceed the path of right Reason in many things.

At length, that is remarkable, that in the works of Art, the efficient Cause is alwaies [unspec 86] without: and the Schools being deceived through the errour thereof, have not known, that in natural and substantial generations, the Agent is internal: For therefore, they have banished the efficient Cause, as external, in the catalogue of natural Causes: Yea, it hath been unknown, that both the Causes of natural things being connexed (as I have demon∣strated in its place) doth not differ from its Effect, but in the priority of flowing; which thing hath deceived as many as have similitudinously contemplated of Nature by artificial things: For neither have they been elsewhere more blinded, than while they have intro∣duced that incongruity of their own speculation into Diseases: For they have not onely made artificial things like unto seminal, speculatively; but also in endeavouring to cure, they have, through a great confusion of falshoods, bespattered the whole practice of heal∣ing, with contrarieties. For they have thought, that to produce, and to generate, are al∣together [unspec 87] the same; while in the mean time, a generater bespeaks, that he brings forth something from his own substance: but he produceth, who onely couples active things with passive, although he contribute nothing of his own; He maketh, or doeth also, who acteth any thing how he listeth.

Furthermore, I also oft-times admire, that while the Schools do constitute the benefit of healing in the removal of Causes, after what sort, they could place distemperatures within the rank of Diseases; seeing the hot, and most known of diseases, doth both sud∣denly, and of its own accord, slide into cold; and we are able presently to remove the intemperance of heat at pleasure, without helping of the Fevers. And then, seeing they have never received the vital Cause, which is the impulsive one in Diseases, for the effi∣cient [unspec 88] Cause of Diseases, they have determined of removing nothing but the occasional Cause: For the Archeus, although he be the true and immediate Cause, as well accor∣ding to the matter (the which he brings vitiated, and that out of his own bosome;) as also, according to a seminal and efficient Idea: yet the Archeus doth not shew the remo∣val of himself. But the Schools do act contrarily, while they attempt their Cures by blood-letting, purgatives; and next, by every means fortifying Life: But upon what ground they do that, they themselves shall see.

Moreover, in Diseases, Nature is standing, sitting, and laying. Nature standing, doth [unspec 89] her self cure her own Diseases, from a voluntary goodness; as wholsome Fevers: And likewise, a Quartane, which is cured by the proper guidance of Nature, but not by the helps of the Schools. And Nature standing, can also presently walk; the which belongs onely to Health. But Nature sitting, although she be able of her own accord to stand, and at length, to walk, yet she is constrained to arise, before she stands; and therefore she ariseth with the more difficulty: But if she attempt to arise by inordinate remedies, she is prostrated from her seat, and lays on the ground; and being not a little shaken thereby, is pained, and sometimes dies of her fall. Yea also, while many, that they may not be sick or ill at ease, do make use of counsels or advices, which do for the most part hasten old age and death, and oft-times also deprive them of life. But Nature lay∣ing along, can never rise of her self; as the Leprosie, falling Evil, Asthma, Stone, Drop∣sie, &c. Yea, neither is it sufficient for her to arise: for if the nerves or sinews are not confirmed, they do easily relapse.

Furthermore, Hippocrates will have a Physitian to be onely the Minister or Servant of [unspec 90]

Nature: but Natures themselves, to be their own onely Physitiannesses; and that thing he thus commanded in his age: When as otherwise, a Physitian is the Patron and Master of Nature being prostrated; which kinde of Physitian, if the old man had not as yet acknowledged, surely much less, the succeeding heathenish Schools, even unto this day.

Last of all, dead carcasses are dissected, which is done to excuse their excuses in sins; for after a thousand years Anatomy, the Moderns do scarce either the better know Di∣seases, [unspec 91] or the more successfully expel them. They rejoyce indeed, that they have found an imminent mark of any corruption in a part, which covers their unfaithfull Aids or Succours, with the Buckler of impossibility: So indeed, the world is deceived with a lofty brow: For neither was that corruption there, before the space of two days, although the place might be pained long before: So far is it from excusing the Physitian which is seasonably sent for, that it rather lays open the fault of the same, who (to wit) had sea∣sonably or in due time, dispersed the accused excrement: For nothing of the parts con∣taining is destroyed in live Bodies, but it is first deprived of the commerce of Life: And besides, neither can it long be deprived of the Balsame of Life, nor a mortisied part wait many houres in the lukewarmth of the Body, which doth not likewise speedily pu∣trifie, stink, and draw the whole Body into its own conspiracy. Therefore from thence, it is manifest, that the corruption which is obvious in the Dissected dead Carcass, was made but a few hours before, and began but a few dayes before Death: For corrupt mat∣tery Imposthumes, which are stirred up by malignant assemblies in the Lungs, do indeed contain the Seeds of Diseases; but the mortifying of Internal parts, doth not many pa∣ces, precede the day of Death. One onely thing is at leastwise to be admired, that the Schooles indeed have acknowledged a Spermatical or seedy nourishment, whereby we are [unspec 92] immediately nourished: because it is that which they divide into four secondary hu∣mours; yet that they have not known, that the same Humours do become degenerate, in the passage of Digestions, and are the occasions of many Diseases. But that the Liver alone, in Vices of the skin, doth bear the undeserved blame, that is, a thing full of ignorance, and worthy of pity. I will at length, moreover, commune with Christian Physitians by one only Argument.

To wit, I•• is of Faith, that God made not Death for Man: Because Adam was by Creation [unspec 93] Immortal, and void of Diseases.

For concerning long Life, I have explained after what manner a Disease and Death, at the eating of the Apple, as an Effect unto a second Cause, have entred into Nature. There∣fore in this place it hath been sufficient to have admonished; That the Concupiscence of the Flesh arose from Transgression, and also to have brought forth the flesh of Sin; and therefore that Nature being corrupted, produced a Disease through Concupiscence.

I could wish therefore, that the Schooles may open the Causal Band and Connexion be∣tween the forbidden Apple, and the Elements, or the Complexions of these: Whether in the mean time they are lookt upon, as the Causes bringing Diseases, or as Dis∣eases themselves. To wit, let them teach; If the Body of Man from his first Creation, did consist of a mixture of the Four Elements; after what manner those second Causes, or co-mixt Elements onely by eating of the Apple (which else had never been to fight) the Bonds of Peace, and Bolts of humane Nature being burst asunder, at length naturally ex∣ercise hostilities, and all Tyranny. What common thing, I say doth interpose betwixt the Apple and our constitutive Elements? But if this came miraculously and supernaturally to passe, that Death was made a punishment of sin: Then God had made Death Effici∣ently; but Man had given onely an Occasion for Death: But this is against the Text, yea and against Reason: Because Death was made with Beasts, in the Beginning, even as also at this day, unto every one happens his own Death, that is, by a natural course, and a knitting of Causes unto their Effect. It must needs be therefore according to Faith, that Death crept naturally into Nature; so that man was made Mortal after the manner of Bruits. For it is certain that at the eating of the Apple, the brutal concupiscence of the Flesh was introduced: Neither do we read (at length) of any other knowledge of good and evil to have been brought in, which was signified under the opening of their Eyes, than that they knew themselves to be naked, and then it first shamed them of their naked∣ness.

Wherefore I have long stood amazed, that the Schooles have never examined the afore∣said Text, that they might search out the Disposition or Respect of the Cause bringing a Disease unto its natural Effect. In what day soever ye shall eat of the forbidden Fruit, ye shall die the Death. Which indeed is not so to be taken, as if God had said, by way of threat∣nings:

If ye shall eat of the forbidden Tree, I will create or make Death in you, Diseases, Paines, Miseries, &c. for a punishment of sin, or that, through a condign curse of my indignation, ye and your posterity shall die. For such an Interpretation as that resisteth the divine goodness: because that for the sin of our two Parents, he had equally cursed all their posterity, with an irrevocable curse of his Indignation; who after sin commited, and the Flood it self, readily blessed Noah, by increase and multiply, &c. Wherefore those words, Ye shall die the death; did contain a fatherly admonition: To wit, that by eating of the Apple they should contract the every way impurity of Nature, as from a second Cause, seated (to wit) in the Concupiscence of the flesh of sin. But seeing such a concupiscence can ne∣ver consist in elementary qualities; it is also sufficiently manifest, that a Disease and Death, are not connexed as Effects to the Elements, and the qualities of these: But the concupiscence of the flesh, as it infected onely the Archeus, even so also, it did onely re∣spect the same. In the Archeus therefore, every Disease afterwards established it self, and found its own onely and immediate Inne: And so also from hence, the Arche∣us is made wholly irregular, inordinate, violent, and disobedient: Because he is he, who from thenceforth hath framed inordinate images and seales, together with a spending of his own proper substance, as it were the wax of that seal: For images or likenesses, are at first indeed the meer incorporeal Beings of the mind; but as soon as they are imprinted on the Archeus, they cloath themselves with his Body, and are made most powerful seminal Beings, the sealing dames, mistresses, and architectresses of any kind of passions and inor∣dinacies whatsoever: which thing I will hereafter more clearly illustrate in the Treatise of Diseases.

Finally, the adversaries will be able to Object,

That it would be all as one, whether a Disease be accounted a disposition, or a distemperature of the first qualities, or a disproportionable mixture of humours, or lastly, whether it be called an in∣disposition [unspec 94] or confusion, and likewise that it is as one, whether the Cause which brings a Disease, he called the occasional, or the material Cause of Diseases, or the internal and conjoyned Cause thereof: For truely the one onely intention of Nature, and Physitians on both sides, is conversant about the removal of that matter, for the obtainment of health; Therefore that I am stirred about nothing but an unprofitable brawling, concerning a Name.

I Answer Negatively, and that indeed, because both the suppositions are false; For as to the First, For that doth not onely contain a manifest fault in arguing, of [not the Cause] as [of the Cause] and of a [non-Being] [for a Being]: But besides the Destruction and Death of mortal men, doth from thence follow: For, for that very Cause, for which a Remedy is administred to correct the distemperature of a Discrasie or the abounding or disproportion of humours (because of things not existing in Nature) they at least cannot deny, that our Disputation is of things, but not of a Name onely; when as (to wit) they accuse, cure, or undertake to cure the Disease for the Cause, or this, for it. They handle I say, things that are never possible, as if they were present.

And then also, they presse a falshood: Because indeed, I never said, that a naked con∣fusion or indisposition of the Archeus, is a Disease; but I affirme that the immediate and internal matter of a Disease is to be drawn from the masse of the Archeus himself: But I call the imprinted seminal Idea, which springs from the disturbances of the Archeus, the efficient Gause; but as to what appertaines to the other supposition, the occasional or inciting Cause, and the internal containing Cause, or the very Body of a Disease, do far also differ from each other. For example; The occasional Cause of intermitting Fevers is present out of the fit, which should not be if the occasional Cause were the very inter∣nal matter of Fevers: For I have seen some hundreds cured of divers Diseases, by some Simples hanged on the Body, without any removal of the occasional matter: To wit, Na∣ture being busie about the rest.

Thirdly, the fits of Diseases are oft-times ended, the occasional Cause being present and remaining, but it is altogether impossible for that to be, while the containing and internal matter of the Disease is present.

In the next place, there are Diseases which have no occasional Cause, whose own con∣nexed matter is neverthelesse, excussed or struck out about the time of their period, even as fire out of a flint; They not having I say, any other occasion of them, besides Ideal im∣pressions; such as is the Gout, falling-Evil, Madnesse, Asthma, &c. To wit, whose per∣fect Cure consisteth in the removal of the seminal Character, and incorporeal Ferment, not likewise in the sequestration of any matter: For so a certain odour being drawn thorow the nostrils, hath strangled many, without a material vapour or moist sent unto the

Paunch. However therefore they may strive with me, they shall discern, and confess with me, that hitherto, none hath come unto the knowledge of Diseases; and that there hath been blindness in Healing hitherto: Give leave to the truth. It hath therefore been sufficient for me to have demonstrated, that Diseases do lead their Armie into us, by unknow Seminaries and invisible Beginnings, according to that antient Maxim, That every direction of Sublunary things depends on an invisible World. Hence it hath come to pass, that although Diseases have oftentimes been silent, and have wholly ceased to be, under the uncertain Cures of experiments; yet nothing hath been hitherto acted from a fore-knowledge of the means and ends, in Diseases of nature standing, or sitting: Be∣cause also, they do very often of their own voluntary and free accord, hastily run unto the end of their race. But in Diseases of nature laying along or prostrated, nothing hath been heard hitherto, besides the despaires of incurable Diseases, and the Lamentati∣ons of miserable men. What things therefore, have been assayed before, touching the nature of a Disease, let them be Prologues unto those things, which remain to be by and by spoken concerning Diseases: Where I shall professly touch at or reach, the causes of all Diseases in the point of Unity: Here only, handing forth by the way, that Diseases do now issue into depraved and impure nature, plainly after the same manner wherein they at first began to be framed and issue: And the Schooles will not deny that that thing lay hid to the Heathens and their followers.

Last of all, new Diseases have lately happened unto us, and antient ones do hereaf∣ter [unspec 95] scarce any longer answer unto the names and descriptions of our Ancestours: Be∣cause they have put on strange signes and properties, whereby they go masked, and deceive Physitians under the precept of the Antients: For I conjecture that from thence, there will be almost the greatest destruction of Diseases; and so also, that from hence the mercy of God will be so much the nearer unto Mortals: For it hath pleased the most High, to have sent Paracelsus in the forepastage, who might propose unto the World the more profound preparations of Medicines, so far as it was lawful: But at this day, af∣terwards he hath vouchsafed also, to open the knowledge of Diseases: Wherefore I shortly expect another to come, whose Schollar I am not worthy to be: For neither there∣fore, hath the most High permitted my self to hope for the coming of the same man, who hath sent me before, as the publisher of his Praise: For truly with him, every Di∣sease shall equally find its own remedies, under the Stone or Harmony of unity; together with the speculative knowledge of Diseases and Remedies.

I intreat the thrice most great and excellent God, that he would preserve the same man from the vanity of arrogancy, and from sudden Death, sorely threatned unto him by hateful men.