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. ...

CHAP. LXII. A Disease is an unknown Guest. (Book 62)

1. A Narration of things hitherto done. 2. The Object and Intent of the Author. 3. That the Art of the Medicine of the Pagans was an invention of the evil Spirit. 4. A Prayer for his Persecutors. 5. The Author searcheth out or espieth from his Persecutions, that the evil Spirit was the Inventor of the Doctrine of the Pa∣gans. 6. The Labours of the Schooles from hence are vain. 7. The Authors Anguishes. 8. A Prologue of the thingliness of a Disease. 9. The most imme∣diate, containing, and essential Causes of Diseases. 10. The necessity of a seminal Idea is collected. 11. How far this Doctrine departeth from the Schooles. 12. The true causes of things and of Diseases. 13. The Schooles, their ancient defini∣tion of a Disease. 14. The first Contradiction of the Schooles. 15. Another Stum∣bling. 16. A Third. 17. The Author teacheth (in his Treatise of the Elements) that there are not mixt Bodies, as neither humors in Nature, whence the whole foundation of the Medicine of the Schooles goes to ruine. 18. A Fourth Stum∣bling. 19. A Fifth. 20. A Sixth. 21. A Seventh. 22. Against the distemperature of Elementary qualities in us. 23. An Eighth staggering. 24. A Ninth. 25. A Tenth. 26. An Eleventh. 27. The Error of the Schooles is discovered. 28. A Twelfth stumbling. 29. An absurd consequence accord∣ing to the position of the Schooles. 30. The uncertainty of a predicament for Diseases. 31. Arguments on the opposite part, and against a feigned disposition. 32. Tee true efficient Cause of diseases. 33. The occasional matter. 34. Where∣in the whole thingliness or essence of a Disease may be scituated. 35. Whence the Schooles have been seduced. 36. Two false Maxims of the Schooles. 37. Ano∣ther delusion of the Schooles. 38. What natural generation is. 39. The Schooles deceived by Aristotle. 40. Some ignorances arisen from hence. 41. A Disease consisteth of matter, and an efficient cause. 42. Whatsoever is ge∣nerated, that is made by seminal Ideas. 43. All the predicaments are in every Disease. 44. The stip of Heathenisme in healing. 45. That the definition of a Disease hath been hitherto unknown. 46. A Disease is not a Being of the first Constitution, yet hath it entred into the account of Nature. 47. Wherein Dis∣eases are distinguished from other created things. 48. The Error of the Schooles from the subject of Inhaesion of Diseases, and very many Absurdities issuing from thence. 49. That those Absurdities are not to be connived at by Christians. 50. A stubborn ignorance. 51. Hunger is not a Disease. 52. The Schooles depart from their own Hippocrates. 53. Some neglects of the Schooles. 54. The rashness of the Schooles. 55. That the hurt of action, is not to be regarded for the essence of a Disease. 65. Whence that fiction sprang. 57. The conse∣quent upon a confounding of the cause with the symptome. 58. A removal of the Cause doth not of necessity respect a withdrawing of the occasional matter. 59. The Schooles being deluded by artificial things, delude their young beginners by arti∣ficial things. 60. How the Seed may differ from its constituted Body. 61. A Thirteenth stumbling. 62. Some knowledges chiefly true in the Author. 63. What a kind of production of a Disease is made by a Blas. 64. The efficient Cause in a Disease. 65. A Disease pierceth the Life with a formal Light, in a point.

66. Some differences of efficient Causes. 67. An example in the Stone. 68. The Stone is not properly a Disease. 69. While the Effect hath concluded the occa∣sional efficient, there is not the former Disease. 70. The products of Diseases neg∣lected by the Schooles, are touched at. 71. The Error of the Schooles about the Objects of Contrarieties in Diseases. 72. Some Arguments against the Schooles, that it may jerk them. 73. The Products of Diseases, Secondary Diseases; to∣gether with a destinction of Symptomes and Fruits, are resumed. 47. Weakness or Feebleness, what it is. 75. An improper division of Diseases, by the Organi∣cal parts. 76. Whence there is a divers action of diverse things. 77. From the handy-craft operation of the Fire, of Pepper, an Escarrhotick, and Caustick, are Thirteen Conclusions, Paradoxes to the Schooles, and diverse things are illustra∣ted, worthy to be noted. 78. The Fire is but little profitable unto the Speculati∣on of Curing. 79. Some notable things concerning our heat. 80. A various Classis or Order of the Occasions of Diseases. 81. Hippocrates is explained with a connivance. 82. That which Nature doth once despise, that she never after∣wards receiveth into favour. 83. A Disease is of the matter of the Archeus. 84. An explaining of Products. 85. Our Nature is ruled by an erring Under∣standing, after that it is corrupted. 86. The Schooles again deluded by artifici∣al things. 87. To Produce, differs from, to Generate. 88. The Schooles have onely thought of taking away the occasional cause. 89. In us, there is a Nature standing, sitting, and lying. 90. A decree of Hippocrates is explained, with the moderation of that age. 91. Anatomy is frequent to excuse excuses in sins. 92. The sloathful negligence of the Schooles. 93. After what manner death and a disease, have become the Beings of Nature, since the creation, and have received second Causes their producers. 94. Two Objections of the Schooles refuted. 95. A Guess or Presage from the unseparable goodness.

THe integrity of Nature being already, at first, constituted, to wit between the Matter, [unspec 1] the Archeus, and the Life, or forme of a vital Light, with the seminal and vital be∣ginnings; the ferments also, the authors of transmutations, being newly discovered, also the elements, qualities, complexions, and miscellanies of these, their fights, strife, and cursary victories being rejected: likewise humours and defluxing Catarrhes, being ba∣nished out of Nature: Lastly, Flatus's, Tartars, and the three Principles of the Chy∣mists, being banished out of the exercises of Diseases; it now remained that the defects and interchangable courses of Nature themselves, should be intimately or pithily con∣sidered.

Wherefore, before that I make a more profound entrance, I have undertaken to prove, That Diseases have not onely been unknown in the Schooles, in the particular, and therefore that [unspec 2] their Cure hath radically layn hid; but moreover, That the very Essence of a Disease hath been hidden in the general.

Truly it is matter of grief, that it hath been so ingeniously elabourated in other Profes∣sions; but that in the Art of healing alone, men have been hitherto, so stumbled through [unspec 3] deaf Principles; wherein, notwithstanding Charity towards our Neighbour hath been pe∣nally commanded: For all things have remained most obscure, many things most false; and those things which might chiefly conduce unto the scope of Curing, untouched. For there is no where a tractable acuteness, but on every side a great dulnesse; So that, from what hath been said before, there is none but may easily gather, that whatsoever hath been hither to diligently taught, according to the Doctrine of the Pagans, and against a mutual Charity, was the Invention of the evil Spirit. Therefore indeed, the stability of Pagan∣ish Theorems, hath remained through the perswasion of the Devil; which speculations notwithstanding, through their easinesse onely, at the first sight, ought to have been sus∣pected by any one of a sound mind. Therefore nothing more hard, inhumane, and fuller of cruelty, hath been received now for so many Ages, among the Arts of Mortals, than that Art, which under a con-centrical subscription, makes fresh experiments by the deaths of men. The Professors whereof, while they presume, that themselves do keep the keys

of knowledge, they neither enter the passages themselves, nor admit others who are wil∣ling to enter in: but do drive away all, by all wiles and subtilties: Alwayes learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the Truth; according to the Apostle.

Oh Jesus, my light, my life, my glorying, and the helper of my weakness and corrupt disposition, who in they own matters, dost easily find out a passage, with whom that is easie, [unspec 4] which with mortal men, is as it were impossible. Thou, who hast made me to undergo all adversities: I offer unto thee my calamities, and the oppressions of justice. Neverthe∣less, thou hast always comforted me with thine unvanquished right hand: afford me thine hand, that if thou vouchsafe not to snatch me out of the deep pit of so many tribulations; at least wise, that through thy strength, I may not sin against thee, and that they may re∣pent, who have hated me undeservedly: and that they who adore thy Power, may ac∣knowledge in me, that thou alone art God, the helper of the oppressed, and the undoubt∣ed hope of them that trust in thee. Let them be cloathed with contrition, and find fa∣vour with thee; and that I wretched man, may sing forth the praises of thy greatness, af∣ter this life. For the rottenness of this Age is such, that (thy judgement being hidden) the hypocrisie of mighty men, professeth Faith in deceit, and collects their wickedness un∣der the shadow of Piety.

But in so great a tempest of my miseries, unto the miseries of mortals, and the defective errors of Physitians, before the view of my mind, I have attempted, under thy command, [unspec 5] to record in writing. That as hypocrisie hath trampled on me and my fortunes, so I like∣wise know, and that primarily, that the father of lyes, hath introduced the cup of igno∣rance, and the bane of charity and health, into the Paganish Schools; lucre strewing the way, under the beaten stormy path of Tritons. For every young beginner that is to come, shall admire with me, that nothing hath been so unskilfully handled, as those things which concern the life of mortal men. For truly, according to Thomas a Kempis, it is all one with the Devil, so he may render thee uncapable to serve God: whether that be by true things, or things appearing. Therefore it sufficeth him, so he shall but frustrate man of health, and cut short his life, wherein he might serve God, if so be he shall make him a despiser of Divine aid, by the appearing Doctrines of Pagans. For the Schooles have written a thousand Volumns concerning the temperature and strife of qualities; in the [unspec 6] next place, it hath been much and long interpreted by the Successors of Galen, about these trifles, and they have daily relapsed into new centuries and patcheries. And at length, they have squared unto those qualities, feigned and excrementitious humours, which should so wholly govern man, as well healthy as sick, that they should be chief over hu∣mane affairs: as though the conditions, manners, healths, appetites, instincts, inclina∣tions, slips or mis-deeds, strengths, valours, defects, events of fortune, yea and the de∣served punishments of loss or damnation, and the adoptions of eternal life of mortal men, should depend thereon. A horrid, surely, and intollerable thing, that these toyes have stood so long, and that from things not existing, and never to be, and the which, by the asserters themselves, are accounted for excrements, so serious and pernicious Fa∣bles have been co-feigned and believed. And so that, by the Schooles themselves, scarce any thing hath been ever narrowly searched into, which under such Principles, may in ve∣ry deed, be truly true and good. In the mean time I grieve (I testifie it again) not indeed, that I have obtained the light of Truth, from a long compassion towards my Neighbour: [unspec 7] but that it hath behoved me to lay open these Errors: That is, I grieve, that the Devil hath deceived the Schools, and will deceive them, as long as they shall suffer themselves to be deluded by Paganish Fables, and to be separated from the Schools of Truth. But that, that thing may be manifested, I will by a Prologue, declare it by the way, and as it were by a positive demonstration.

For truly, God made not Death. And that is of Faith. Therefore man became mor∣tal, from another thing than from God. And seeing the scope or bound of most Disea∣ses, [unspec 8] is Death it self (because it is that which is nothing else, but an extinguishing of life) therefore a Disease and Death, are Diametrically opposite to life. Whence it follows, that every Disease doth immediately act on the life. But nothing is able to act on the life, unless it be applyed unto it, and well mixed with it. But a Disease, the enemy, is not applyed unto the life, promiscuously, unless it shall besiege a part of the life, and so shall sit totally or partially in the very life it self. Which being done, that part of the life besieged or overcome, doth retire from the vital Air, and the which, being thus van∣quished and become degenerate, is made hostile unto the life as yet remaining, or as yet constituted in its integrity.

Hence it necessarily follows, that every Disease, as it finds matter in the Organical or

instrumental Air of life, whereby it most immediately and inwardly riseth up against the life it self, so in the same vital light, it finds an efficient cause: And so a Disease, being thus instructed or furnished with matter and an efficient cause, is entertained about the life. Neither is it of concernment the while, whether that contagion of a Disease, be drawn from occasional Causes; or in the next place, be bred within in the Archeus, through the errour of Life: At leastwise, it is sufficient in this place, that the Life it self is on both sides the principal object for the hostile disease. But seeing the Life it self is a light∣some Being, it acts not but by its instrument of the vital aire, or by the Archeus, as a mean, between the light of Life flowing from the father of lights, and the body: But [unspec 10] this aire or Archeus, doth not act, but after the manner wherein every seminal spirit act∣eth on the mass subjected under it; that is, not but by an imprinted mark, or sealie Idea, which hath known what, and which way it must act. Therefore all and every disease, hath a sealie mark, and as it were a seminal act, which is expert of things to be acted by it self.

This Declaration therefore doth far recede or differ from an elementary distemperature, [unspec 11] from humours, and the disproportionable mixture of those, from the fight and contra∣riety of the elements of our composition; because every disease is nothing but a Sword to the Life, wounding, or totally cutting it off. For as a Sword doth exhaust the Life, toge∣ther with the arterial blood and vital aire, wherein, according to the holy Scriptures, the Soul it self sitteth; So a disease consumeth the same air of Life, on which it afresh seal∣eth an hostile character, drawn as well from occasional Causes, as gotten through the errour of its own indignation.

This exact account of a disease being granted; lo, I come unto the explaining of a disease.

And first, I will demonstrate from the very Theoremes of the Schools, that the thing∣liness or essence of a disease, hath been hitherto unknown.

Whence, in the next place, any one shall easily judge, what hath even hitherto been done in the remedies and vanquishing of diseases.

I have oft-times promised, that I will demonstrate, that the Schools have hitherto neglected (that is, that they have not known) the essence, root, or nature of a disease, in its own universal quiddity or thingliness: And seeing I have already from the Ele∣ments, prosecuted that thing even unto a conclusion, thorow all their privy shifts; now at length, by an Anatomy of particulars, I shall also stand to my promises, if I shall de∣tect the same in the general; and especially, if I shall shew that thing no longer by the fictions of Elements, temperaments, and humours, but by the very words of Authors, whereby they corrupt their Young beginners, as it were, with a mortal contagion.

In the premises, it hath already been demonstrated by me, that the Ages before me, [unspec 12] being deluded by the trifles of the Peripateticks, have been ignorant of the Causes; to wit, the Matter and Efficient of natural things.

Then also, that a thing it self is nothing, besides a connexion of both Causes; and that this same thing is in diseases; especially seeing a disease, although happening unto us by sin, is now admitted for a prodigal Son of Nature. Truly, the univocal or simple homo∣geneity of Causes in natural Beings, hath compelled me hereunto; whereby the effici∣ent Cause is denominated from effecting, but not from the Effect, which is after the Efficiency.

Therefore the Schools do first of all define a disease to be an affect, or disposition, which doth primarily hurt the actions of our faculties, wherein they do, as yet, very much stumble.

For truly, first they name this Affect, a distemperature of one or two qualities of the first Elements: For so they rehearse the same thing, because they consess a disease to be [unspec 13] an elementary quality it self, as it exceedeth a just temperature. Therefore a disease shall no longer be that disposition, resulting from the first qualities, which they suppose immediately to hurt the functions themselves: And so they feign the whole disease, here∣after [unspec 14] to consist in nothing but in a degree or excess of an elementary quality.

Again, now and then they call the very distemperature of qualities, not indeed a Di∣sease, but well, the antecedent cause of the same: They will, I say, have those four so∣litary [unspec 15] qualities to be diseases, whether they shall proceed from external qualities co-like unto themselves, or whether they owe their beginning in the body to be from a strange disproportion of mixture.

Furthermore, they afterwards combine those qualities in a bride-bed; from the con∣gress whereof they then derive their off-spring, a Disease; to wit, they believe that the [unspec 16]

Elements are so subservient to their own dreams: As that also, qualities being joyned at their pleasure, they have commanded them to answer to as many elements. So that those naked qualities being even balaced with feigned elements, and dreamed humours, they have feigned to be Diseases themselves. For in this place I declare the unseason∣able, [unspec 17] yea sporting varieties of the Schools, and their poverty, greatly fighting: other∣wise surely I have sufficiently proved elsewhere, by a Demonstration chiefly true; That in the nature of things there are not four elements; and therefore neither are they mixed, that bodies which they have called mixt may be thereby constituted: and by consequence, that neither can distemperatures be accused for diseases: As neither, that ever there were four constitutive humours of us in the nature of things; whereby it is sufficiently and over-manifest, that the causes of diseases, yea and diseases, and the predicament of diseases, have been hitherto unknown in the Schools. Notwithstanding, I will now dis∣semblingly treat with them, by the supposed Positions of the same Schools.

Therefore the Schools sometimes repenting them of their sayings, will have the ele∣mentary [unspec 18] qualities, and not unfrequently, the humours equal to these, not indeed to be diseases, but onely the containing causes of almost all diseases.

Otherwise again, that of those qualities being more intense than is meet, a third or neutral one doth arise, which they have called the Diathesis or Disposition, or Disease it [unspec 19] self: And so, however they toss the business, they have hitherto commanded a disease to inhabite among qualities: but humours, although intemperate ones, they for the most part driven out of the rank of diseases. Indeed a Cataract in the eye, although as a substance, it doth immediately intercept the sight, yet it cannot be a disease. There∣fore they have feigned a certain Being of reason, and an imaginary relation, or obstructi∣on, [unspec 20] which might contain every property of a disease, and might be truly a disease, the Cataract being rejected: And so by degrees, a disease comes down unto non-beings and privations. And now and then, they for the essence of a disease, do ridiculously distin∣guish [unspec 21] a simple distemperature from a conjoyned one; and again, both of them from a hu∣mourous one; when as a humour should be a substance void of degrees. Indeed they have distinguished the societies of proportionable and disproportionable mixtures of the first qualities into pedigrees; and then they have thereby erected specious Schemes; and at length they have filled whole Volumes with those fables: But at leastwise they have ne∣ver [unspec 22] admitted an evil or vitiated humour to be bred in us, which may not presuppose some elementary distemperature to be mother unto it. Wherefore a distemperature, in the Schools, shall be onely the cause of the cause, and of the thing caused: but it shall not be the thing caused it self, or the disease; nor in the next place, the immediate and con∣nexed cause of the disease.

Oft-times again, the opinion of their minde being changed, they have withdrawn those [unspec 23] qualities out of the account of diseases and causes, and have undistinctly banished them into the troop of sumptomes and co-incident things onely: being altogether doubtfull, what a disease, what a cause causing, or what a sumptome should be: But of the inter∣nal occasional causes of diseases (which in the Book of Fevers I first brought into open [unspec 24] view) and of the equivocal or various kinds of products of diseases, nothing hath been heard in the Schools. For besides heats, colds, pains, weaknesses, and co-incidents of that sort, they have known no other fermental effect of a disease; whereunto, at length, for a conclusion, they have brought death. And so they have confusedly joyned priva∣tive things to positive. In the mean time, they have doubted to what predicament they [unspec 25] might ascribe diseases. For they oft-times denominate a disease to be a quality: other∣wise also, a certain relative habitude or disposition of body; oftentimes also, to be a quality of the number of actions; they do often say it to be of the predicament of quan∣tity; to wit, while they say that diseases are not the first qualities themselves, but their distemperature, or degree, or excess onely; and while they bring a sixth finger into num∣bers. But being unmindfull of what they said before, they will have a certain dispositi∣on, [unspec 26] resulting from a hurtfull quality of humours, to fill up both pages or extensions of a disease; to wit, so as that, that disposition may be the daughter of the hurtfull quality, as of the diseasifying cause: And so then a disease should supply the room, rather of an action hurt, than of the hurter of actions: And likewise a disease should not be any lon∣ger a distemperature, or the excess of a quality, but another product (as yet unnamed) from the distemperature it self (to wit, a hurtfull quality of humours) shall generate the disposition; which onely and alone, should at length be truly the disease. For truly, a [unspec 27] man that hath the falling Evil, a mad man, a gouty person, and one that hath a Quar∣tane Ague, besides and out of the fit, are diseasie, and do nourish the disease within:

Yet they have not such a diathesis or disposition (for if the Schools do believe diseases to be meer accidents, surely these know not how to sleep, neither are they while they do not act) in the time of rest from invasion. Therefore at least-wise in that sort of sick folks, the disease shall by no means be such a dispositive disposition.

Again, they being unmindfull of themselves, do will, that if that disposition be small, [unspec 28] it is not to have the reason or essence of a disease: but therefore, that it then doth bring forth a neither state, or an hermaphroditical Being, between a disease and not a disease: so that its essence doth, for the half of it, partake of a non-being; and that as well in the state of declining, as of recovery: And which more is, they reckon such a small dia∣thesis not among diseases, but with the weaknesses of a state of neutrality, and among symptomes: And that there it doth patiently wait, until that having obtained a degree of a symptome, it be made a disease: And so a diseasie disposition is not a disease, if it [unspec 29] hath not as yet manifestly hurt by its excesse: wherefore also, not the disposition it self, but the excess thereof, is the disease of a proper name in the Schools: The correllative whereof is, that the degree onely of some qualities doth make and change the essence and species of its own self; neither shall a species therefore have its own thinglinesse, in its being specifical, but onely in the point of excesse. So at length, a disease shall wander from a quality, into the predicament in relation. [unspec 30]

In the next place, if a disease be an effect, immediately hurting action; they ought even from thence, at least, to acknowledge that the Archeus himself, or the maker of the [unspec 31] assault, while he is irregularly moved, (to wit, while Scarr-wort doth embladder a li∣ving body, not likewise a dead carcass) and layes aside, and loseth a part of himself, for this purpose, ought to be the universal and primary disease of all: Even as I have threat∣ned to demonstrate concerning Feavers. They likewise ought to acknowledge, if mate∣rial causes do by themselves, and primarily suffice for an immediate hurting of the fun∣ctions themselves (to wit, as a Cataract before the apple of the eye doth by it self, and immediately bring forth blindness: even as the cutting off or mayming of a tendon, doth take away motion, without the intervening of a disposition really distinct from the cur∣tailing wound) that there is no need of feigning such a disposition; for there is not any stoppage, or diathesis which stops up the passage of the urine: if the stone alone doth im∣mediately do that, and materially stop, and doth so perfectly and really contain the whole foundation of a relation in it self, that the disposition or stoppifying action proceeding from the stopping stone, is nothing but a relation, and meer Being of reason, which in diseases, in time of healing; as also in true Beings, and things truly existing, hath no place: wherefore extrinsecal diseases, such as are wounds, and what things soever do intercept any passage, seeing they do not arise from a seminal beginning, nor do nourish a cause which may stir up the Archeus, they are the clients of another Monarchy. But [unspec 32] for seminal diseases, it is a nearer thing in nature and motion, to suppose the Spirit, the Archeus, as it is the efficient beginning of feeling and motion, to be immediately, and most nearly affected by hurtfull things, and that, that occasional cause, and the Archeus, do mutually touch each other in a point; whence a disease: For the occasional matter, whether it be brought to within, or be bred within, or be coagulable, or putrifiable; [unspec 33] lastly, dispersable, or waxing hard, doth alwaies onely occasionally stir up the Archeus, that he may thereby be astonied or sore afraid, and wax diversly wroth: To wit, under whose perturbation, an Idea is bred, informing some part of the Archeus. And that thing [unspec 34] composed of the matter of the Archeus, and the aforesaid seminal Idea, as the efficient Beginning, is in truth, every seminal disease. Therefore the Schools being seduced by their own proper liberties of dreams, have thought, that because the consideration [unspec 35] of Causes and Principles differs from the consideration of the thing produced by them, therefore from a necessity formally causing, all Causes ought in making, being, opera∣ting, and remaining, to remain perpetually separated from the things caused: not heed∣ing, that for the most part, the consideration of Causes and Principles, doth not other∣wise differ from the consideration of the thing caused, than by the relation of a mental Being; the which, although it be received in Science Mathematical, and discoursary things, yet not in the course of Nature. Therefore the Schools, being deluded by such [unspec 36] faulty arguments, have believed every efficient Cause to be of necessity external; and that therefore it cannot be united with the thing caused; and therefore that neither is the thing generating a part of the thing generated; when as otherwise in Nature, that which mediately generates a Being, is alwaies the internal, vital Governour, and assisting Ar∣chitect or Master-workman of Generation: and so he who for an End, directeth all things unto their scopes, causeth all things for himself, and for himself acteth all things. There∣fore

they being also deceived in Diseases, have believed that the diseasifying Cause is [unspec 37] external in respect of the body of man; or at leastwise in the beholding of the Family∣administration of Life. For it hath not been known, that Generation bespeaks nothing but a flux of the Seed unto perfection, maturity of properties, an unfolding of things [unspec 38] hidden, and a consummating of Orders unto their own ends.

First therefore, Aristotle hath deceived the Schools, teaching, that Corruption and [unspec 39] Generation do throughout whole Nature, and that alwaies and of necessity, by steps suc∣ceed each other: And therefore he hath made a mental Being, a meer negative, non∣being (a naked privation) the immediate Principle in Nature, between Generation and Corruption.

Neither could ever the Schools understand, that the same Workman which hath made a Plant of a Seed, hath not failed in the generating of a Plant, hath not, as being bani∣shed, [unspec 40] departed, as being worn out, not died; nor lastly, that another hath been surro∣gated in his stead for the coming of a form (whereof that Workman remains the immedi∣ate executive Instrument, for ends foreknown by God) or a participation of life: but that he himself doth even onely and alwaies remain in the government of Life. Hence indeed, neither have they understood, that the thing generated doth proceed from Causes really and suppositively, not distinct from the essence of a thing; yea nor indeed, with any interchangeable course of causality: Because the Schools have hitherto more dili∣gently considered of Operations demonstrable by Sense, (Science Mathematical, I say, and artificial things diverse from Nature) than the natures of things themselves, seated in the Cup or bosome of essentiality. For they have never heeded that the Instrument of Art, the Artificer himself; yea, the Measures themselves of things measurable, cannot ge∣nerate any thing seminally in nature, or introduce a seminal, substantial or essential dis∣position, for the transchanging of products. Consequently also, neither have they un∣derstood a disease, as a real and substantial Being, but onely in manner of an accident: when as otherwise, a disease is not a disposition, not an accident hurting the actions; and much less the hurt of an action it self, proceeding from a duel of hurtfull Causes with out ruling Powers: But a Disease is a real Being, having its Causes, the Material and Efficient, stirred up by occasional Causes: For if a Disease, and Nature, or our Fa∣culties, do stand in a diameter, (for so they will have them) a Disease and a sound or healthy Life, cannot be at once in the same immediate Subject: therefore a disease can∣not be a disposition, which doth even bring a detriment unto our powers: but such a dis∣position should be rather a fruit of the disease, and a consequent more latter than the dis∣ease, and the mother and nurse of weaknesses. I therefore distinguish this disposition from the occasional causes, and products of diseases. But the fruits of a disease, seeing they have respect unto the term [unto which] the disease generates those its own pro∣ducts, they may also be co-incident, or happen together with the Life; and therefore some symptomatical fruits are among dispositions; which thing the Schools have not yet explained: To wit, the defects of digestions, motions, &c. And likewise weaknesses are dispositions, which proceed indeed from the products of diseases (even as by and by in its own place) yet they are not diseases, because they light into nature, whereinto they are introduced by the strange violences of diseasie seeds, and thus far are unially en∣tertained in the life; neither therefore can they have the nature of a disease, because a disease cannot remain together with the life, in the same point of identity. But a disease retires out of the bosome of life, no otherwise than as it separates it self out of health. But Life is in it self, a certain integrity or sound state of light, with which a disease can∣not co-habite; as neither doth a disease subsist but in the vice of life, or in life that is de∣generate: The which indeed is separated from the vital light it self; and therefore also, from the central point of life it self. For as light, which the Soul it self is, is not life it self: So neither is the light of life it self, a disease it self: But this sits in the ulcerous dege∣neration of the vital Archeus, and so also vitiates the light hereof: and therefore by rea∣son of a mark of resemblance, it participates of life, and doth sometimes render it confor∣mable to it self, and doth wholly vitiate it: which thing, in the Plague is ordinary and ma∣nifest. It hath not been known therefore in the Schools, unto what predicament they might attribute a disease. But I say, that a disease consisteth of Matter, and an efficient Cause, no otherwise than as other Beings of nature do: For the essicient Archeus, in labouring by his [unspec 41] own disjointings of passions, and in bringing forth the Idea's of his own disturbances (for whatsoever things are made in nature, do arise, & are propagated by Idea's inclosed in seeds; for otherwise the progresses of nature should be foolish, which want an internal guide or [unspec 42] leader) procureth to dispose of some portion of his own substance, according to the hostile

ends which he hath proposed to himself, and to the whole Body, in that very kind of his estrangedness; and at that very moment, wherein the matter comes down unto the bound proposed to the efficient Idea, a disease is bred: Even so that, every seminal disease consist∣eth in a real act, which causeth an indisposition of the matter proper to it self, that is, of the very Archeus which makes the assault, and being applied unto us.

I therefore have learned, that every circle of predicaments, are in very deed in Dis∣eases [unspec 43] after the true manner of other Beings by themselves, subsisting in Nature: For by this meanes, I have found, not Diseases in Predicaments, but all Predicaments in Dis∣eases: For truly in all seminal Diseases, I find an occasional matter, which like a violent guest, making an assault, doth violate the Inne, and right, and disturbes the administrati∣on of the Family. From thence I find, that the Archeus himself is disturbed in all parti∣tular Diseases: for from hence also, I consider another internal matter of a Disease, to wit, that part of the Archeus, which he hath defiled by his own exorbitancy; on which part he hath fashioned the Idea of his perturbation, and the seminal efficient Cause of a Disease.

So indeed a true and real Being, doth conserve in it self the respects of all the Predica∣ments; [unspec 44] through the ignorance of which, or one only point, heathenisme hath overwhelmed the Schooles of Medicine, with the contagion of blindness; And all curing hath been be∣lieved to be subject unto naked qualities, excesses of degrees, relative respects and actions. For from hence they have feigned, Contraries to be Remedies of Contraries; and no Dis∣ease to be mitigated by the goodness of Nature, the mildness of Medicines, and by the ap∣peasing and repentance of the Archeus, that was first disturbed; but only by fighting, skir∣mishing and war, to be reduced into a mean, or temperature of the first qualities; So that seeing they think every Disease to be a Disposition, likewise that all Remedies ought to be a naked Disposition, or they are deceived in their position; whence it follows, that the taking away of the stone out of the Bladder, shall never be able of it self to import a cure of the sick.

For truly, seeing it is a Remedy onely privative, whereunto an appeasing of the Arche∣us belongs; but it is not a Disposition contrary to the Stone: And much lesse a prohibi∣tive [unspec 45] of the foregoing matter, which they suppose of necessity to be supplied from elsewhere, uncessantly to flow thither, nor to cease, the Stone being taken away by the knife, to wit, if the Disposition generating the matter [whereof] shall not first cease: Therefore ac∣cording to the Schooles, He that is cut for the Stone, should be cured onely for a little space, to wit, as the Impediments of Functions are taken away, otherwise produced, and cherished by the Stone being present; and also as the disposition mentally interposing, is secondarily, casually and by accident obliterated. But the mattter is far otherwise; For truly a seminal Disease is a creature, which made and found out its own matters, and its own Idea's in us after sin, by an hereditary right of the Archeus, neither had he it originally in Nature: And there∣fore the root of Diseases, ought totally to be unknown to all Heathenisme: And seeing an essential definition is not to be fetched from the Genus of the thing defined, and its con∣stitutive difference (even as I have taught in the Book of Feavers) by reason of the mani∣fold perplexities of Errors, and ridiculous positions; but altogether from a connexion of both Causes, which are Beings in Nature, and therefore, that the primitive and Ideal cause of Diseases hath stood neglected hitherto: It follows also, that the definition, knowledge, essence, and roots of a Disease, have remained unknown: And finally that curings have been instituted by accident, with an ignorance of the universal disposition of internal pro∣perties, their efficacie and interchangable course.

Truly I know, as a Christian, that a Disease is not a Creature of the first Constitution; [unspec 46] because it is that which hath taken its rootes from sin, in the impurity of Nature, which afterwards in their own spring have at length budded in Individuals. For neither were created poysons Diseases, as long as they were without us, but then, when the Archeus of the same was made domestical unto us, through the forreign disposition of its middle life, it raised up seminal Idea's in our Archeus, even as Fire is struck out of a Flint: Then I say, Diseases, are made unto us, the fore-runners of Death, from an occasional poyson. Dis∣eases therefore do continue with us, when they have their provoking occasions subsist∣ing in our Nature, until neither their occasional matter be wasted away, or at least until the Archeus be rid of his own perturbations, or of his office. For Diseases indeed came on us by Sin, and afterwards in Nature now corrupted by Sin, the ferments and ready obedi∣ences of matter, waxed strong, and so they pierced into the number and catalogue of Na∣ture, and even unto this day do most inwardly persevere with us, after a singular manner: Yet alwayes distinct from other created things in this, that the created things of the first

constitution, have a proper existence in themselves; but diseases neither are, nor are able to subsist without us: Because they proceed as it were from a formal light, and the vital constitutive Beginning of us: And therefore the natural Archeus and a Disease, do pierce each other, because they have a material co-resemblance.

But the Schooles, when they heeded, that Diseases do never exist without us, supposed that [unspec 48] our Body was the subject of Inhaesion of Diseases, and consequently, that Diseases were on∣ly accidents, and therefore to be stirred up from an elementary distemperature, because they apprehended them in a most prompt, and rustical sence; also for that cause, they hoped that they should sufficiently, and over vanquish Diseases by Heats and Colds: And there∣fore they likewise decreed, that every refreshment, aid and help, which nature being in∣formed, did require of the Physitian, was not to be administred in shew of a refreshment, in peace and tranquility; but herein onely to prevail, and that wars, strifes, contraries, and discords were to be appointed, whereby the hostile elementary qualities being co∣broken in us, they might by constraint, return into a mediocrity of temperature, that so they may restrain the injuries of Nature now corrupted by contrary injuries, and subdue them by revenging: Which thing surely they have thus judged, nor have otherwise un∣derstood, because that, they knew no other action, than that which from a superiority of the agent, rules over the patient. But surely those things do not savour of an help, nei∣ther is the Law of Christ (by whom all things were made) conformable to those Lawes of the Schooles: And so (as elsewhere more largely) either Christ is not the parent of Na∣ture, or an adversary to himself in Nature, or such Heathenish speculations of healing are rotten. The Schooles therefore have not considered, that the matters of many Beings do not consist but in a strange Inne, whereunto they were appointed: Wherefore by reason of their different kind of manner of existing, they thought a Disease to be a meer accident, but predicamentally seperating the matter, which a Disease might carry before it, from a Disease: As if an Embryo should be an accident, because it is no where but in the womb. Indeed it pleased the revenger of sin, that Diseases, with their matters, as well that occa∣sional, as that equal and inward unto them, should not subsist, but in those whose the Dis∣eases and offence should be, and that without respect of the Being of one unto another. For neither have the Heathenish Schooles ever considered, as neither the Moderns who have been established on Paganish Beginnings, that this relation of existence came unto them from the condition of sin, and the procreation thereof, from the Archeus sore shaken with perturbations: Because such thoughts never entred into Heathenisme, neither is it a wonder, that the Gentiles knew not the force of Transgression, although they do deliver by the Fable of Promotheus and Pandora, that they learned something from the Hebrews: Yet it is a wonder, that they were ignorant that a Disease, before it should be made ours, ought to proceed from the most inward Beginning of Life, and to be incorporated in us; neither therefore, that occasional Causes, can be the connexed and constitutive Causes of Diseases; for truly, those Causes, do as yet remain after life, and yet Diseases cease.

But we must in no wise indulge Christians, who are thorowly instructed by the Scrip∣tures, that they have even until now, esteemed it for an honour to have delivered their [unspec 49] minds bound unto the hurtful stupidities of Heathens. They took notice indeed, that there was that affinity of some Diseases with us, that they were so connexed unto our Bo∣dy, in respect of an occasional matter, that they could scarce be divided from a consent of the mind, or be seperated from a hurt action; as in Wounds, instrumentary Diseases, those deprived of the strength of Seeds. For the Haw upon the Coat Cornea, is that which immediately, hurteth the sight; as also the Stone, doth without a medium, stop up the passage of the Urine.

But the obstruction flowing from thence, is a relation and Being of Reason; the which [unspec 50] as it acteth nothing, so neither hath it the reason, nor consideration of a Disease in Na∣ture: Nevertheless, the Modern Schooles had rather to commit the Essences of Diseases unto Elementary discords, than that they would confess the Bodies of Nature, to be∣speak nothing else besides a connexion of both constitutive Causes, to them unknown. For that reason, miserable mortals have hitherto groaned under this burden of blindness, expecting Cure from those, who were fully ignorant of the constitutive Causes of Dis∣eases.

Wherefore, seeing a Disease ought to contain its own efficient Cause, and its own mat∣ter within it self; Hence it easily appears, that hunger, although like a very sharp Dis∣ease, [unspec 51] it kills in very few dayes, yet is not a Disease; because it doth not consist of Diseasie Causes, whether it be considered as a sorrowful sense of the number of Symptomes; or next as it consisteth of real defects: Because for as much as the soure ferment of the Sto∣mack

(even as in the Treatise concerning Digestions) wanting an Object whereon it may act, yet cannot therefore take rest, it attempts by resolving the secondary humour, and immediate nourishment of the Stomack; for the Archeus is as well in hunger as in fullnesse, the cause not onely of a Disease, but of Health it self: But a want of the mat∣ter of Food, bespeakes a privation, but not a Disease: Wherefore we must altogether exactly note, that Hunger although it doth cruelly slay, as if it were a Disease; yet that it is not a Disease, in that respect, to wit, because the Archeus is in no wise diseasie in hunger: From whence it ought to be clearly manifest, that every Disease doth primarily and essentially respect its efficient Archeus.

For that cause it was rightly decreed by Hippocrates, to the carelesnesse of the Schooles, that hot, cold, moist, or dry (not indeed as such, and concrete or composed) are not Dis∣eases, [unspec 52] or the causes of these; but sharp, bitter, salt, brackish, &c. For peradventure in the age of Hippocrates, the occasional cause was not yet distinguished from a true Disease. Indeed, he knew a twofold excrement to be in us: One indeed natural and ordinary, and so ours, but the other a diseasie one, from its mother errour, and a hostile propagation, and the which, we Christians know to have proceeded from the vigour of sin: For when the oldman had distinguished this by forreign savours, he supposed, that if it were not a Disease it self, at leastwise, it was the adequate or suitable occasion of Diseases, not yet then distinguished from a Disease: The removal whereof at least, should open both the folding doors of Healing. But it is matter of amazement, that he whom the Schooles do boast to follow as their Captain, they have skipped over this his Text, through sluggishness; as also another Standard-defender of the same Captain; wherein he hath declared, that every motion, unto a Disease, Death, and Health, is efficiently made by the Spirit which maketh an assault: And likewise wherein he saith, that Natures themselves are the Phy∣sitianesses of Diseases; and by consequence the makers also of Diseases, if that assaulting spirit by its disturbance, doth work all things whatsoever are done or made in living Bodies.

Indeed the Schooles have passed by many such things, which did deserve to be accounted like Oracles; because they being deluded and bewitched by four feigned Humors being tra∣duced [unspec 53] by the deep shipwrack of sleepiness, drousiness, and sluggishness; have neglected the liquors which he himself nameth secondary ones: as if a Disease might not be as equally possible in those, as in the four feigned primary humours. Therefore have they also neg∣lected the Diseases arising from the retents or things retained of Digestions and transplan∣tations; because also they have been utterly ignorant of the Digestions and Fermentati∣ons themselves, even as I have taught in its place. Alas! How penurious a knowledge hath graced Physitians hitherto, whom otherwise if they had been true Physitians, the most High had commanded to be honoured.

For they have considered a Disease to flow forth as an accident, produced by its Agent, a diseasifying matter (wherein therefore that its own efficient is, they have in the enter∣ance [unspec 54] been ignorant) and the patient, which they say is the Body of Man.

First of all,

They do not distinguish the Agent from the Matter, which is most intimate here∣unto.

Secondly,

Then, They deny a Disease to be material, because it is that which they suppose to be a meer Quality.

Thirdly,

Neither do they distinguish provoking Occasions, from the internal Efficient; because with Aristotle, they suppose every Efficient Cause to be External.

Fourthly,

They separate the constitutive Causes from the thing constituted.

Fifthly,

They know not the Chain of Efficient Causes, with their Products.

Sixthly,

They for the most part, confound Occasional Causes with their Diseases and Symptomes.

Seventhly,

They somtimes look upon a Disease as a Disposition skirmishing between the Orders of Causes, and the Body of Man.

Eighthly,

They had rather have that very later disposition, arisen (as they say) from the fight of Causes, to be a Disease, the which, to wit, should immediately (so they say) hurt the actions, whether in [unspec 55]

the mean time, it be contrary unto a vital action, or indeed, it be the effect of that contrariety, which shall offend the functions.

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.