Dr. Willis's practice of physick being the whole works of that renowned and famous physician wherein most of the diseases belonging to the body of man are treated of, with excellent methods and receipts for the cure of the same : fitted to the meanest capacity by an index for the explaining of all the hard and unusual words and terms of art derived from the Greek, Latine, or other languages for the benefit of the English reader : with forty copper plates.

To the most Reverend Father in God GILBERT (By Divine Providence) Arch-Bishop of Canterbury. Primate and Metropolitan of all ENGLAND, and one of the Privy Council to His Sacred Majesty CHARLES the Second, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, &c.

Most Renowned Prelate,

IN that I still become troublesom to your greater Cares, by this Kind of often repeated Duty, I must also repeat my former Excuse. For that these my VVritings, with those formerly Published, for the most part consist of those things which I have delivered in my Academical Read∣ings, by a necessitated Duty belong to you, for that I recei∣ved them from your Favours; and indeed, neither these had ever seen the Light, nor perhaps my self had ever been in the number of Authors, unless I had been made at first your Sidlie Professor at Oxford; yours I say, both for the ancient Honour with which you had advanced me, and also for the more fresh magnificent Liberality, which has ob∣liged the whole Academy, and all its Gowned Company. All the Schools partake of what is imputed to your Thea∣tre; and moreover all the Professors, whil'st every one of their private Patrons are acknowledged, Celebrate Sheldon; who exceeds, by your gifts that of other Mecaenatuses, and Crowns the whole.

But as these Disquisitions are indebted to your Munifi∣cence, so they require your Patronage, and we offer them not more in Duty to your Grace, than for the Cause of your

Tutelage. Concerning the Soul, I have enter'd upon a great and difficult thing, and full of hazard; where we may equally fear the Censures of the Church, as the Schools. For that I assert a Man (as the Mad-man in the Gospel possess't with a Legion) to be indued with many distinct Souls, and design sometimes a legitimate Subordination of them, and sometimes wicked Combinations, troublesom Con∣tests, and more than Civil Wars; yea, and in that I im∣portunately describe, the Manners and Affections, the Mutual Exaltations, Dejections, and Productions of either, and their state after Separation: These, I say, some not on∣ly Philosophers, but Theologists perhaps may find fault with. And althô I have a place of Safety, in that the Arguments and Reasons fight on my Side, and that I have got the Suffrages of the ancient Philosophers, and the holy Fathers (and especially of St. Hierome and Augustine, and among the Moderns of Gassendus and our Hammond) yet suffer your Grace for my greater Safety, to extend your help to me, and grant that I may profess in the Entrance to this Dis∣course, that I am

Your Grace Most humble and devoted Servant Tho. Willis.