De eutha

nasia exteriore.

Medicinæ experimentales.

Nay farther, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors, and not only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair and easy passage: for it is no small felicity which Augustus Cæsar was wont to wish to himself, that same euthanasia, and which was specially noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the fashion and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sleep. So it is written of Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate, he drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of wine; whereupon the epigram was made, "Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas:" he was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water. But the physicians, contrariwise, do make a kind of scruple and religion to stay with the patient after the disease is deplored; whereas, in my judgment, they ought both to inquire the skill, and to give the attendances for the facilitating and asswaging of the pains and agonies of death.

In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficience in the receipts of propriety, respecting the particular cures of diseases: for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition and experience by their magistralities, in adding, and taking out, and changing quid pro quo, in their receipts, at their pleasures, commanding so over the medicine, as the medicine cannot command over the disease; for except it be treacle, and Mithridatum, and of late diascordium, and a few more, they tie themselves to no receipts severely and religiously: for as to the confections of sale which are in the shops, they are for readiness, and not for propriety; for they are upon general intentions of purging, opening, comforting, altering, and not much appropriated to particular diseases; and this is the cause why empirics and old women are more happy many times in their cures than learned physicians, because they are more religious in holding their medicines. Therefore here is the deficience which I find, that physicians have not, partly out of their own practice, partly out of the constant probations reported

in books, and partly out of the traditions of empirics, set down and delivered over certain experimental medicines for the cure of particular diseases, besides their own conjectural and magistral descriptions. For as they were the men of the best composition in the state of Rome, which either being consuls inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to the senate; so in the matter we now handle, they be the best physicians, which being learned, incline to the traditions of experience, or being empirics, incline to the methods of learning.

balneis,

medicina

In preparation of medicines, I do find strange, Imitatio especially, considering how mineral medicines have naturæ in been extolled, and that they are safer for the outward et aquis than inward parts, that no man hath sought to make libus. an imitation by art of natural baths, and medicinable fountains: which nevertheless are confessed to receive their virtues from minerals; and not so only, but discerned and distinguished from what particular mineral they receive tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like; which nature, if it may be reduced to compositions of art, both the variety of them will be increased, and the temper of them will be more commanded.

dicinale,

dicinarum.

But lest I grow to be more particular than is agree- Filum meable, either to my intention or to proportion; I will sive de conclude this part with the note of one deficience more, vicibus mewhich seemeth to me of greatest consequence; which is, that the prescripts in use are too compendious to attain their end; for to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so sovereign, or so happy, as that the receipt or use of it can work any great effect upon the body of man: it were a strange speech, which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he were by nature subject; it is order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, which is mighty in nature; which although it require more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience in observing, yet is recompensed with the magnitude of effects. And although a man would think by the daily visitations

of the physicians, that there were a pursuance in the cure; yet let a man look into their prescripts and ministrations, and he shall find them but inconstancies, and every day's devices, without any settled providence or project; not that every scrupulous or superstitious prescript is effectual, no more than every strait way is the way to heaven, but the truth of the direc tion must precede severity of observance.

For Cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate for cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves. As for artificial decoration, it is well worthy of the deficiences which it hath; being neither fine enough to deceive, nor handsome to use, nor wholesome to please.

For Athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say, for any point of ability, whereunto the body of man may be brought, whether it be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two parts, strength and swiftness and patience likewise hath two parts, hardness against wants and extremities, and indurance of pain and torment, whereof we see the practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer punishment: nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not within any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain a strange power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it to this part. Of these things the practices are known, but the philosophy that concerneth them is not much inquired; the rather, I think, because they are supposed to be obtained, either by an aptness of nature, which cannot be taught, or only by continual custom, which is soon prescribed; which though it be not true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences, for the Olympian games are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is for use; as for the excellency of them, it serveth for the most part but for mercenary ostentation.

For arts of Pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them is of laws to repress them. For as it hath been well observed, that the arts which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military, and while virtue is in state, are liberal, and while virtue is in decli

nation, are voluptuary; so I doubt, that this age of the world is somewhat upon the descent of the wheel. With arts voluptuary I couple practices jocular; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures of the senses. As for games of recreation, I hold them to belong to civil life and education. And thus much of that particular human philosophy which concerns the body, which is but the tabernacle of the mind.

FOR Human Knowledge, which concerns the Mind, it hath two parts, the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul or mind; the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions thereof._7

Unto the first of these, the considerations of the original of the soul, whether it be native or adventive, and how far it is exempted from laws of matter, and of the immortality thereof, and many other points, do appertain; which have been not more laboriously inquired than variously reported; so as the travel therein taken, seemeth to have been rather in a maze than in a way. But although I am of opinion, that this knowledge may be more really and soundly inquired even in nature than it hath been; yet I hold, that in the end it must be bounded by religion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delusion: for as the substance of the soul in the creation was not extracted out of the mass of heaven and earth, by the benediction of a producat, but was immediately inspired from God; so it is not possible that it should be, otherwise than by accident, subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which are the subject of philosophy; and therefore the true knowledge of the nature, and state of the soul, must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance. Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul there be two appendixes, which, as they have been handled, have rather vapoured forth fables than kindled truth, divination, and fascination.

Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial, and natural; whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a prediction by argument, concluding upon signs and tokens: natural is, when the mind hath a presention by an internal power, without the induce

ment of a sign. Artificial is of two sorts, either when the argument is coupled with a derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it is only grounded upon a coincidence of the effect, which is experimental; whereof the latter for the most part is superstitious: such as were the heathen observations upon the inspection of sacrifices, the flights of birds, the swarming of bees, and such as was the Chaldean astrology, and the like. For artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are distributed amongst particular knowledges. The astronomer hath his predictions, as of conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and the like. The physician hath his predictions, of death, of recovery, of the accidents and issues of diseases. The politician hath his predictions; "O urbem venalem, et cito perituram, si emptorem invenerit!" which stayed not long to be performed in Sylla first, and after in Cæsar; so as these predictions are now impertinent, and to be referred over. But the divination which springeth from the internal nature of the soul, is that which we now speak of, which hath been made to be of two sorts, primitive, and by influxion. Primitive is grounded upon the supposition, that the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected into itself, and not diffused into the organs of the body, hath some extent and latitude of prenotion, which therefore appeareth most in sleep, in extasies, and near death, and more rarely in waking apprehensions; and is induced and furthered by those abstinences and observances which make the mind most to consist in itself. By influxion, is grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as a mirror or glass, should take illumination from the foreknowledge of God and spirits; unto which the same regiment doth likewise conduce. For the retiring of the mind within itself, is the state which is most susceptible of divine influxions, save that it is accompanied in this case with a fervency and elevation, which the ancients noted by fury, and not with a repose and quiet, as it is in the other.

Fascination is the power and act of imagination more intensive upon other bodies than the body of the imaginant: for of that we speak in the proper place; wherein