MEMB. 5. SUBSECT. 1. Continent, inward, antecedent, next causes, and how the body works on the Minde.

AS a Purly hunter, I have hitherto beaten about the circuit of the Forrest of this Microcosme, and followed only those outward adventious causes. I will now break into the inner rooms, and rip up the antecedent immediate causes which are there to be found.

For as the distraction of the minde, amongst other outward causes & perturbations, alters the temperature of the body, so the distraction & distemper of the body will cause a distemperature of the soul, and ’tis hard to decide which of these two do more harme to the other.

Plato, Cyprian, and some others, as I have formerly said, lay the greatest fault upon the soul, excusing the body; others again accusing the body, excuse the soul, as a principal agent. Their reasons are, because the manners do follow the temperature of the body, as Galen proves in his book of that subject, Prosper Calenus de Atra bile, Jason Pratensis c.de Mania, Lemnius l.4.c.16. and many others.

And that which Gualter hath commented hom.10.in epist.Johannis, is most true: concupiscence and original sin, inclinations, & bad humors, are radical in every one of us, causing these perturbations, affections, and several distempers, offering many times violence unto the soul.

Every man is tempted by his own concupiscence (James 1.14) the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and rebelleth against the spirit, as our Apostle teacheth us: that me thinks the soul hath the better plea against the body, which so forcibly inclines us, that we cannot resist,

Nec nos obniti contra, nec tendere tantum Sufficimus.

How the body being material, worketh upon the immaterial soul, by mediation of humors and spirits, which participate of both, and ill disposed organs, Cornelius Agrippa hath discoursed lib.1.de occult.Philos.cap.63,64,65. Levinus Lemnius lib.1.de occult.nat.mir.cap.12.&16.&21. institut.ad opt.vit. Perkins lib.1.Cases of Cons.cap.12. T.Bright c.10,11,12. in his Treatise of melancholy.

For as anger, fear, sorrow, obtrectation, emulation, &c. si mentis intimos recessus occuparint, saith Lemnius, corpori quoque infesta sunt, & illi teterrimos morbos inferunt, cause grievous diseases in the body, so bodily diseases affect the soul by consent.

Now the chiefest causes proceed from the Heart, humors, spirits: as they are purer, or impurer, so is the Minde, and equally suffers, as a Lute out of tune, if one string or one organ be distempered, all the rest miscarry,

Corpus onustum Hesternis vitiis, animum quoque prægravat unà.

The Body is domicilium animæ, her house, abode, and stay; and as a torch, gives a better light, a sweeter smell, according to the matter it is made of: so doth our soul performe all her actions, better or worse, as her organs are disposed; or as wine savours of the cask wherein it is kept; the soul receives a tincture from the body, through which it works.

We see this in old men, children, Europeans; Asians, hot and cold Climes; Sanguin are merry, Melancholy sad, Phlegmatick dull, by reason of abundance of those humors, and they cannot resist such passions which are inflicted by them.

For in this infirmity of humane nature, as Melancthon declares, the Understanding is so tied to, and captivated by his inferior senses, that without their help he cannot exercise his functions, and the Will being weakned, hath but a small power to restrain those outward parts, but suffers her self to be overruled by them;

that I must needs conclude with Lemnius, spiritus & humores maximum nocumentum obtinent, spirits and humors do most harme in troubling the soul. How should a man choose but be cholerick and angry, that hath his body so clogged with abundance of gross humors? or melancholy, that is so inwardly disposed? That thence comes then this malady, Madness, Apoplexies, Lethargies, &c. it may not be denied.

Now this body of ours is most part distempered by some precedent diseases, which molest his inward organs & instruments, and so per consequens cause melancholy, according to the consent of the most approved Physicians:

This humor (as Avicenna l.3.Fen.1.Tract.4.c.18. Arnoldus breviar.l.1.c.18. Jacchinus comment.in 9.Rhasis.c.15. Montaltus c.10. Nicholas Piso c.de Melan.&c. suppose) is begotten by the distemperature of some inward part, innate, or left after some inflammation, or else included in the bloud after an ague, or some other malignant disease.

This opinion of theirs concurres with that of Galen.l.3.c.6.de locis affect. Guianerius gives an instance in one so caused by a quartan ague, and Montanus consil.32. in a young man of 28. years of age, so distempered after a quartan, which had molested him five years together.

Hildisheim spicel.2.de Mania, relates of a Dutch Baron, grievously tormented with melancholy after a long ague: Galen.l.de atra bile c.4. puts the plague a cause. Botaldus in his book de lue vener.c.2. the French pox for a cause, others, Phrensie, Epilepsie, Apoplexie, because those diseases do often degenerate into this.

Of suppression of Hæmrods, Hæmorogia, or bleeding at nose, menstruous retentions, (although they deserve a larger explication, as being the sole cause of a proper kinde of melancholy, in more ancient Maids, Nunnes and Widowes, handled apart by Rodericus à Castro, and Mercatus, as I have elsewhere signified,) or any other evacuation stopped, I have already spoken.

Only this I will add, that this melancholy which shall be caused by such infirmities, deserves to be pitied of all men, and to be respected with a more tender compassion, according to Laurentius, as coming from a more inevitable cause.