Arcana microcosmi, or, The hid secrets of man's body discovered in an anatomical duel between Aristotle and Galen concerning the parts thereof : as also, by a discovery of the strange and marveilous diseases, symptomes & accidents of man's body : with a refutation of Doctor Brown's Vulgar errors, the Lord Bacon's natural history, and Doctor Harvy's book, De generatione, Comenius, and others : whereto is annexed a letter from Doctor Pr. to the author, and his answer thereto, touching Doctor Harvy's book De Generatione / by A.R.

CHAP. XIX.

1. Five things required to hearing. 2. Not the real but intentional sound is heard: Hearing fails last in drowned men. 3. The innate air no organ of hearing: no spirit, or part of the body. 4. The caus ••f the sympathy between the ear and the mouth.

I. FOR the sense of hearing are required, 1. A sound, which is caused by the collision of two solid bodies, or of the air and of another body. 2. Air which is the medium that receiveth and carrieth the sound, whereas the water in respect of its thickness carrieth the sound but imperfectly and dully. 3. The ear containing in it the thin and dry membrane called the drum, which if it be thick, or too much moistned, hindreth hearing. 2. Three little bones called Incus, malleus, & Stapes. 3. An innate and immoveable air. 4. A winding labyrinth, that the external air and sound may not too suddenly rush in upon the nerve of hearing. 5. This auditory nerve carrieth the sound to the brain, that there the common sense and fantasie may judge thereof.

II. The sound which is carried into the ear is not real, but intentional and spiritual, or the species and image of the real sound; for how can a real sound passe through a thick wall, or multiply it self in a thousand ears, in an instant, or in so short a time, reach twenty miles from any canon to the eare. 2. The winding labyrinth in the ear is the cause, why men that are drowned lose the sense of hearing last, because the water cannot passe through that winding Meander.

III. The innate air of the ear is not the organ of hearing, but a medium, for it differs not from the external air, nor can that be an organ which is no part of the body, either sper∣matical or sangui••eal, as Physitians use to speak, neither is it animated by the soul, for the soul is the act of organical bodies onely: Nor is it a spirit either animal or vital, because it is not contained within the nerves or arteries; and being it is not a mixed, but a simple body, it can be no part either similar or dissimilar.

IV. By reason the auditory nerves do impart some bran∣ches to the tongue; hence it is, that there is such a sympathy between the ear and mouth. That this is a help or hindrance to our hearing, and this to speaking, so that if the auditory nervs be stopped or deficient, not onely deafness but dumbness is cau∣sed;

and we finde that those who hear hardly, speak little, and such as are born deaf, are born dumb too: and if we hold a musical instrument with our teeth, and stop our ears, we shall hear the sound perfectly.