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CHAP. III.
1. Centaurs, proved what they were. 2. Why the sight of a Wolfe causeth obmutescency. 3. Pigmies proved. Gammadim, what. 4. Giants proved: they are not monsters. 5. The strange force of Fascination. The sympathies and antipathies of things. The Load∣stones attraction, how hindred. Fascination, how cured. Fasci∣nation by words.
THat there have been Centaurs, that is, Monsters, half Hor∣ses, and half Men in the world, I make no question, though Dr. Brown, (Book 1. c. 4.) reckons this among his Vulgar Errors, who should have made a distinction between. Poetical fictions, and real truths: For Centaurs are Monsters, and aberrations from nature; not the common nature of all things, which in∣tends and effects Monsters, to shew Gods wrath against sin: but from the particular nature of those creatures of which they are ingendred. Therefore S. Ierome in the life of Paul the E∣remite, speaks of a Centaur seen by Paul. Pliny Nat. Hist. l. 7. c. 3. was an eye-witnesse to this truth: For he saw in Thessaly a Centaur, which was brought out of Egypt to Claudius Caesar. Ambrose Parry. (l. 15. de Monstris) speaks of a Centaur which in the year ••254, was brought forth at Verona: there is no doubt then but Centaurs as well as other Monsters, are produced, partly by the influence of the stars, and partly by other cau∣ses, as the ill disposition of the matrix, the bad temperature of the seed, the perverse inclination of the woman, the com∣mixtion of seeds of divers kinds, sudden fear, bad diet, unwhol∣some air, and untimely Venus. But we must not think that these Centaurs were men, or parts of men; for they had not a reasonable soul, and therefore not capable of the resurrection. Neither must we think that these had two natures and essenti∣al forms in one body, to wit, of a Man and a Horse: for as e∣very entity hath but one specifical essence, so it hath but one form which giveth that essence; so that one and the same thing cannot be under divers species in the predicament of substance. And as there cannot be two distinct forms, so neither can there be a mixtion of them in the Centaur: For the form or essence admits neither intention nor admission: Ex duobus entibus per se, non fit unum ens per se; yet I deny that there were ever a generation of people called Centaurs, as they are described by the Poets; for by this fiction they