substance, are either homogeneal or heterogeneal, similar or
dissimilar; so Aristotle divides them, lib. 1, cap. 1, de Hist.
Animal.; Laurentius, cap. 20, lib. 1. Similar, or homogeneal, are such
as, if they be divided, are still severed into parts of the same
nature, as water into water. Of these some be spermatical, some fleshy
or carnal. [957]Spermatical are such as are immediately begotten of the
seed, which are bones, gristles, ligaments, membranes, nerves,
arteries, veins, skins, fibres or strings, fat.
_Bones_.] The bones are dry and hard, begotten of the thickest of the
seed, to strengthen and sustain other parts: some say there be 304,
some 307, or 313 in man's body. They have no nerves in them, and are
therefore without sense.
A gristle is a substance softer than bone, and harder than the rest,
flexible, and serves to maintain the parts of motion.
Ligaments are they that tie the bones together, and other parts to the
bones, with their subserving tendons: membranes' office is to cover the
rest.
Nerves, or sinews, are membranes without, and full of marrow within;
they proceed from the brain, and carry the animal spirits for sense and
motion. Of these some be harder, some softer; the softer serve the
senses, and there be seven pair of them. The first be the optic nerves,
by which we see; the second move the eyes; the third pair serve for the
tongue to taste; the fourth pair for the taste in the palate; the fifth
belong to the ears; the sixth pair is most ample, and runs almost over
all the bowels; the seventh pair moves the tongue. The harder sinews
serve for the motion of the inner parts, proceeding from the marrow in
the back, of whom there be thirty combinations, seven of the neck,
twelve of the breast, &c.
_Arteries_.] Arteries are long and hollow, with a double skin to convey
the vital spirit; to discern which the better, they say that Vesalius
the anatomist was wont to cut up men alive. [958]They arise in the left
side of the heart, and are principally two, from which the rest are
derived, aorta and venosa: aorta is the root of all the other, which
serve the whole body; the other goes to the lungs, to fetch air to
refrigerate the heart.
_Veins_.] Veins are hollow and round, like pipes, arising from the
liver, carrying blood and natural spirits; they feed all the parts. Of
these there be two chief, _Vena porta_ and _Vena cava_, from which the
rest are corrivated. That _Vena porta_ is a vein coming from the
concave of the liver, and receiving those mesaraical veins, by whom he
takes the chylus from the stomach and guts, and conveys it to the
liver. The other derives blood from the liver to nourish all the other
dispersed members. The branches of that _Vena porta_ are the mesaraical
and haemorrhoids. The branches of the _cava_ are inward or outward.
Inward, seminal or emulgent. Outward, in the head, arms, feet, &c., and
have several names.
_Fibrae, Fat, Flesh_.] Fibrae are strings, white and solid, dispersed
through the whole member, and right, oblique, transverse, all which
have their several uses. Fat is a similar part, moist, without blood,
composed of the most thick and unctuous matter of the blood. The
[959]skin covers the rest, and hath cuticulum, or a little skin tinder
it. Flesh is soft and ruddy, composed of the congealing of blood, &c.
SUBSECT. IV.—_Dissimilar Parts_.
Dissimilar parts are those which we call organical, or instrumental,
and they be inward or outward. The chiefest outward parts are situate
forward or backward:—forward, the crown and foretop of the head, skull,
face, forehead, temples, chin, eyes, ears, nose, &c., neck, breast,
chest, upper and lower part of the belly, hypocondries, navel, groin,
flank, &c.; backward, the hinder part of the head, back, shoulders,
sides, loins, hipbones, os sacrum, buttocks, &c. Or joints, arms,
hands, feet, legs, thighs, knees, &c. Or common to both, which, because
they are obvious and well known, I have carelessly repeated, eaque
praecipua et grandiora tantum; quod reliquum ex libris de anima qui
volet, accipiat.
Inward organical parts, which cannot be seen, are divers in number, and
have several names, functions, and divisions; but that of
[960]Laurentius is most notable, into noble or ignoble parts. Of the
noble there be three principal parts, to which all the rest belong, and
whom they serve—brain, heart, liver; according to whose site, three
regions, or a threefold division, is made of the whole body. As first
of the head, in which the animal organs are contained, and brain
itself, which by his nerves give sense and motion to the rest, and is,
as it were, a privy counsellor and chancellor to the heart. The second
region is the chest, or middle belly, in which the heart as king keeps
his court, and by his arteries communicates life to the whole body. The
third region is the lower belly, in which the liver resides as a Legat
a latere, with the rest of those natural organs, serving for
concoction, nourishment, expelling of excrements. This lower region is
distinguished from the upper by the midriff, or diaphragma, and is
subdivided again by [961]some into three concavities or regions, upper,
middle, and lower. The upper of the hypocondries, in whose right side
is the liver, the left the spleen; from which is denominated
hypochondriacal melancholy. The second of the navel and flanks, divided
from the first by the rim. The last of the water course, which is again
subdivided into three other parts. The Arabians make two parts of this
region, Epigastrium and Hypogastrium, upper or lower. Epigastrium they
call _Mirach_, from whence comes Mirachialis Melancholia, sometimes
mentioned of them. Of these several regions I will treat in brief
apart; and first of the third region, in which the natural organs are
contained.
_De Anima.—The Lower Region, Natural Organs_.] But you that are readers
in the meantime, Suppose you were now brought into some sacred temple,
or majestical palace (as [962]Melancthon saith), to behold not the
matter only, but the singular art, workmanship, and counsel of this our
great Creator. And it is a pleasant and profitable speculation, if it
be considered aright. The parts of this region, which present
themselves to your consideration and view, are such as serve to
nutrition or generation. Those of nutrition serve to the first or
second concoction; as the oesophagus or gullet, which brings meat and
drink into the stomach. The ventricle or stomach, which is seated in
the midst of that part of the belly beneath the midriff, the kitchen,
as it were, of the first concoction, and which turns our meat into
chylus. It hath two mouths, one above, another beneath. The upper is
sometimes taken for the stomach itself; the lower and nether door (as
Wecker calls it) is named Pylorus. This stomach is sustained by a large
kell or caul, called omentum; which some will have the same with
peritoneum, or rim of the belly. From the stomach to the very fundament
are produced the guts, or intestina, which serve a little to alter and
distribute the chylus, and convey away the excrements. They are divided
into small and great, by reason of their site and substance, slender or
thicker: the slender is duodenum, or whole gut, which is next to the
stomach, some twelve inches long, saith [963] Fuschius. Jejunum, or
empty gut, continuate to the other, which hath many mesaraic veins
annexed to it, which take part of the chylus to the liver from it.
Ilion the third, which consists of many crinkles, which serves with the
rest to receive, keep, and distribute the chylus from the stomach. The
thick guts are three, the blind gut, colon, and right gut. The blind is
a thick and short gut, having one mouth, in which the ilium and colon
meet: it receives the excrements, and conveys them to the colon. This
colon hath many windings, that the excrements pass not away too fast:
the right gut is straight, and conveys the excrements to the fundament,
whose lower part is bound up with certain muscles called sphincters,
that the excrements may be the better contained, until such time as a
man be willing to go to the stool. In the midst of these guts is
situated the mesenterium or midriff, composed of many veins, arteries,
and much fat, serving chiefly to sustain the guts. All these parts
serve the first concoction. To the second, which is busied either in
refining the good nourishment or expelling the bad, is chiefly
belonging the liver, like in colour to congealed blood, the shop of
blood, situate in the right hypochondry, in figure like to a half-moon,
generosum membrum Melancthon styles it, a generous part; it serves to
turn the chylus to blood, for the nourishment of the body. The
excrements of it are either choleric or watery, which the other
subordinate parts convey. The gall placed in the concave of the liver,
extracts choler to it: the spleen, melancholy; which is situate on the
left side, over against the liver, a spongy matter, that draws this
black choler to it by a secret virtue, and feeds upon it, conveying the
rest to the bottom of the stomach, to stir up appetite, or else to the
guts as an excrement. That watery matter the two kidneys expurgate by
those emulgent veins and ureters. The emulgent draw this superfluous
moisture from the blood; the two ureters convey it to the bladder,
which, by reason of his site in the lower belly, is apt to receive it,
having two parts, neck and bottom: the bottom holds the water, the neck
is constringed with a muscle, which, as a porter, keeps the water from
running out against our will.
Members of generation are common to both sexes, or peculiar to one;
which, because they are impertinent to my purpose, I do voluntarily
omit.
_Middle Region_.] Next in order is the middle region, or chest, which
comprehends the vital faculties and parts; which (as I have said) is
separated from the lower belly by the diaphragma or midriff, which is a
skin consisting of many nerves, membranes; and amongst other uses it
hath, is the instrument of laughing. There is also a certain thin
membrane, full of sinews, which covereth the whole chest within, and is
called pleura, the seat of the disease called pleurisy, when it is
inflamed; some add a third skin, which is termed mediastinus, which
divides the chest into two parts, right and left; of this region the
principal part is the heart, which is the seat and fountain of life, of
heat, of spirits, of pulse and respiration—the sun of our body, the
king and sole commander of it—the seat and organ of all passions and
affections. Primum vivens, ultimum moriens, it lives first, dies last
in all creatures. Of a pyramidical form, and not much unlike to a
pineapple; a part worthy of [964] admiration, that can yield such
variety of affections, by whose motion it is dilated or contracted, to
stir and command the humours in the body. As in sorrow, melancholy; in
anger, choler; in joy, to send the blood outwardly; in sorrow, to call
it in; moving the humours, as horses do a chariot. This heart, though
it be one sole member, yet it may be divided into two creeks right and
left. The right is like the moon increasing, bigger than the other
part, and receives blood from _vena cava_, distributing some of it to
the lungs to nourish them; the rest to the left side, to engender
spirits. The left creek hath the form of a cone, and is the seat of
life, which, as a torch doth oil, draws blood unto it, begetting of it
spirits and fire; and as fire in a torch, so are spirits in the blood;
and by that great artery called aorta, it sends vital spirits over the
body, and takes air from the lungs by that artery which is called
_venosa_; so that both creeks have their vessels, the right two veins,
the left two arteries, besides those two common anfractuous ears, which
serve them both; the one to hold blood, the other air, for several
uses. The lungs is a thin spongy part, like an ox hoof, (saith
[965]Fernelius) the town-clerk or crier, ([966]one terms it) the
instrument of voice, as an orator to a king; annexed to the heart, to
express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice, is
manifest, in that no creature can speak, or utter any voice, which
wanteth these lights. It is, besides, the instrument of respiration, or
breathing; and its office is to cool the heart, by sending air unto it,
by the venosal artery, which vein comes to the lungs by that _aspera
arteria_ which consists of many gristles, membranes, nerves, taking in
air at the nose and mouth, and by it likewise exhales the fumes of the
heart.
In the upper region serving the animal faculties, the chief organ is
the brain, which is a soft, marrowish, and white substance, engendered
of the purest part of seed and spirits, included by many skins, and
seated within the skull or brain pan; and it is the most noble organ
under heaven, the dwelling-house and seat of the soul, the habitation
of wisdom, memory, judgment, reason, and in which man is most like unto
God; and therefore nature hath covered it with a skull of hard bone,
and two skins or membranes, whereof the one is called _dura mater_, or
meninx, the other _pia mater_. The dura mater is next to the skull,
above the other, which includes and protects the brain. When this is
taken away, the pia mater is to be seen, a thin membrane, the next and
immediate cover of the brain, and not covering only, but entering into
it. The brain itself is divided into two parts, the fore and hinder
part; the fore part is much bigger than the other, which is called the
little brain in respect of it. This fore part hath many concavities
distinguished by certain ventricles, which are the receptacles of the
spirits, brought hither by the arteries from the heart, and are there
refined to a more heavenly nature, to perform the actions of the soul.
Of these ventricles there are three—right, left, and middle. The right
and left answer to their site, and beget animal spirits; if they be any
way hurt, sense and motion ceaseth. These ventricles, moreover, are
held to be the seat of the common sense. The middle ventricle is a
common concourse and cavity of them both, and hath two passages—the one
to receive pituita, and the other extends itself to the fourth creek;
in this they place imagination and cogitation, and so the three
ventricles of the fore part of the brain are used. The fourth creek
behind the head is common to the cerebel or little brain, and marrow of
the backbone, the last and most solid of all the rest, which receives
the animal spirits from the other ventricles, and conveys them to the
marrow in the back, and is the place where they say the memory is
seated.
SUBSECT. V.—_Of the Soul and her Faculties_.
According to [967]Aristotle, the soul is defined to be ἐντελέχεια,
perfectio et actus primus corporis organici, vitam habentis in
potentia: the perfection or first act of an organical body, having
power of life, which most [968]philosophers approve. But many doubts
arise about the essence, subject, seat, distinction, and subordinate
faculties of it. For the essence and particular knowledge, of all other
things it is most hard (be it of man or beast) to discern, as
[969]Aristotle himself, [970]Tully, [971]Picus Mirandula, [972]Tolet,
and other neoteric philosophers confess:—[973]We can understand all
things by her, but what she is we cannot apprehend. Some therefore make
one soul, divided into three principal faculties; others, three
distinct souls. Which question of late hath been much controverted by
Picolomineus and Zabarel. [974] Paracelsus will have four souls, adding
to the three grand faculties a spiritual soul: which opinion of his,
Campanella, in his book de sensu rerum [975]much labours to demonstrate
and prove, because carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer; with
many such arguments And [976]some again, one soul of all creatures
whatsoever, differing only in organs; and that beasts have reason as
well as men, though, for some defect of organs, not in such measure.
Others make a doubt whether it be all in all, and all in every part;
which is amply discussed in Zabarel amongst the rest. The [977]common
division of the soul is into three principal faculties—vegetal,
sensitive, and rational, which make three distinct kinds of living
creatures—vegetal plants, sensible beasts, rational men. How these
three principal faculties are distinguished and connected, Humano
ingenio inaccessum videtur, is beyond human capacity, as [978]
Taurellus, Philip, Flavins, and others suppose. The inferior may be
alone, but the superior cannot subsist without the other; so sensible
includes vegetal, rational both; which are contained in it (saith
Aristotle) ut trigonus in tetragono as a triangle in a quadrangle.
_Vegetal Soul_.] Vegetal, the first of the three distinct faculties, is
defined to be a substantial act of an organical body, by which it is
nourished, augmented, and begets another like unto itself. In which
definition, three several operations are specified—altrix, auctrix,
procreatrix; the first is [979]nutrition, whose object is nourishment,
meat, drink, and the like; his organ the liver in sensible creatures;
in plants, the root or sap. His office is to turn the nutriment into
the substance of the body nourished, which he performs by natural heat.
This nutritive operation hath four other subordinate functions or
powers belonging to it—attraction, retention, digestion, expulsion.
_Attraction_.] [980]Attraction is a ministering faculty, which, as a
loadstone doth iron, draws meat into the stomach, or as a lamp doth
oil; and this attractive power is very necessary in plants, which suck
up moisture by the root, as, another mouth, into the sap, as a like
stomach.
_Retention_.] Retention keeps it, being attracted unto the stomach,
until such time it be concocted; for if it should pass away straight,
the body could not be nourished.
_Digestion_.] Digestion is performed by natural heat; for as the flame
of a torch consumes oil, wax, tallow, so doth it alter and digest the
nutritive matter. Indigestion is opposite unto it, for want of natural
heat. Of this digestion there be three differences—maturation,
elixation, assation.
_Maturation_.] Maturation is especially observed in the fruits of
trees; which are then said to be ripe, when the seeds are fit to be
sown again. Crudity is opposed to it, which gluttons, epicures, and
idle persons are most subject unto, that use no exercise to stir
natural heat, or else choke it, as too much wood puts out a fire.
_Elixation_.] Elixation is the seething of meat in the stomach, by the
said natural heat, as meat is boiled in a pot; to which corruption or
putrefaction is opposite.
_Assation_.] Assation is a concoction of the inward moisture by heat;
his opposite is semiustulation.
_Order of Concoction fourfold_.] Besides these three several operations
of digestion, there is a fourfold order of concoction:—mastication, or
chewing in the mouth; chilification of this so chewed meat in the
stomach; the third is in the liver, to turn this chylus into blood,
called sanguification; the last is assimilation, which is in every
part.
_Expulsion_.] Expulsion is a power of nutrition, by which it expels all
superfluous excrements, and relics of meat and drink, by the guts,
bladder, pores; as by purging, vomiting, spitting, sweating, urine,
hairs, nails, &c.
_Augmentation_.] As this nutritive faculty serves to nourish the body,
so doth the augmenting faculty (the second operation or power of the
vegetal faculty) to the increasing of it in quantity, according to all
dimensions, long, broad, thick, and to make it grow till it come to his
due proportion and perfect shape; which hath his period of
augmentation, as of consumption; and that most certain, as the poet
observes:—
Stat sua cuique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus
Omnibus est vitae.———
A term of life is set to every man,
Which is but short, and pass it no one can.
_Generation_.] The last of these vegetal faculties is generation, which
begets another by means of seed, like unto itself, to the perpetual
preservation of the species. To this faculty they ascribe three
subordinate operations:—the first to turn nourishment into seed, &c.
_Life and Death concomitants of the Vegetal Faculties_.] Necessary
concomitants or affections of this vegetal faculty are life and his
privation, death. To the preservation of life the natural heat is most
requisite, though siccity and humidity, and those first qualities, be
not excluded. This heat is likewise in plants, as appears by their
increasing, fructifying, &c., though not so easily perceived. In all
bodies it must have radical [981]moisture to preserve it, that it be
not consumed; to which preservation our clime, country, temperature,
and the good or bad use of those six non-natural things avail much. For
as this natural heat and moisture decays, so doth our life itself; and
if not prevented before by some violent accident, or interrupted
through our own default, is in the end dried up by old age, and
extinguished by death for want of matter, as a lamp for defect of oil
to maintain it.
SUBSECT. VI.—_Of the sensible Soul_.