صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

So. But most especially in passions and affections, it shews and evident effects: what will not a fearful man constrange ceive in the dark? what strange formes of Bugbears, Devils, Witches, Goblins? Lavater imputes the greatest cause of spectrums, and the like apparitions, to fear, which above all other passions begets the strongest Imagination, (saith Wierus) and so likewise love, sorrow, joy, &c. Some dye suddenly, as she that saw her son come from the battel at Cannæ, &c. Jacob the Patriark, by force of Imagination, made peckled Lambs, laying peckled rods before his sheep. Persina that Ethiopian Queen in Heliodorus, by seeing the picture of Perseus and Andromeda, in stead of a Blackmoor, was brought to bed of a fair white childe. In imitation of whom belike, an hard favored fellow in Greece, because he and his wife were both deformed, to get a good brood of children, Elegantissimus imagines in thalamo collocavit, &c. hung the fairest pictures he could buy for money in his chamber, "That his wife by frequent sight of them, might conceive and bear such children." And if we may beleeve Bale, one of Pope Nicholas the third's Concubines by seeing of a Bear was brought to bed of a monster. "If a woman (saith Lemnius) at the time of her conception think of another man present, or absent, the childe will be like him." Great bellied women, when they long, yeeld us prodigious examples in this kinde, as Moles, Warts, Scars, Harelips, Monsters, especially caused in their children, by force of a depraved phantasie in them: Ipsam speciem quam animo effigiat, fœtui inducit: She imprints that stamp upon her childe, which she conceives unto her self. And therefore Lodovicus Vives, lib. 2. de Christ. fæm. gives a special cauThat they do not admit such tion to great bellied women, absurd conceits and cogitations, but by all means avoid those horrible objects, heard or seen, or filthy spectacles." Some will laugh, weep, sigh, groan, blush, tremble, sweat, at such things as are suggested unto them by their Imagination. Avicenna speaks of one that could cast himself into a Palsie when he list; and some can imitate the tunes of Birds and Beasts, that they can hardly be discerned: Dagebertus' and Saint Fran

S

66 u

Solet timor, præ omnibus affectibus, fortes imaginationes gignere, post amor, Lib. 1. cap. 4. de ocEx viso urso, talem peperit. &c. 1. 3. c. 8. cult. nat. mir. si inter amplexus & suavia cogitet de uno, aut alio absente, ejus Quid non fætui adhuc matri unito, subita effigies solet in fætu elucere. spiritu vibratione per nervos, quibus matrix cerebro conjuncta est, imprimit impregnatæ imaginatio? ut si imaginetur malum granatum, illius notas secum " Ne dum proferet fætus: Si leporem, infans editur supremo labello bifido, & dissecto: Vehemens cogitatio movet rerum species. Wier. lib. 3. cap. 8.

uterum gestent, admittant absurdas cogitationes, sed & visu, audituque fæda & horrenda devitent.

VOL. I.

S

cis'

X

[ocr errors]

a

cis' Scars and Wounds, like those of Christ's, (if at the least any such were) Agrippa supposeth to have hapned by force of Imagination that some are turned to Wolves, from Men to Women, and Women again to Men (which is constantly be lieved) to the same Imagination; or from Men to Asses, Dogs, or any other shapes. Wierus ascribes all those famous transformations, to Imagination; that in Hydrophobia they seem to see the picture of a Dog, still in their water, that melancholy men, and sick men, conceive so many phantastical visions, apparitions to themselves, and have such absurd apparitions, as that they are Kings, Lords, Cocks, Bears, Apes, Owls; that they are heavy, light, transparent, great and little, senseless and dead (as shall be shewed more at large, in cur *Sections of Symptomes) can be imputed to naught else, but to a corrupt, false, and violent Imagination. It works not in sick and melancholy men onely, but even most forcibly sometimes in such as are sound: it makes them suddenly sick, and alters their temperature in an instant. And sometimes a strong conceit or apprehension, as Valesius proves, will take away Diseases: in both kindes it will produce real effects. Men if they see but another man tremble, giddy or sick of some fearful disease, their apprehension and fear is so strong in this kinde, that they will have the same Disease. Or if by some South-sayer, Wiseman, Fortune-teller, or Physitian, they be told they shall have such a Disease, they will so seriously apprehend it, that they will instantly labor of it. A thing familiar in China (saith Riccius the Jesuite) " If it be told them they shall be sick on such a day, when that day comes, they will surely be sick, and will be so terribly afflicted, that sometimes they die upon it. Dr Cotta in his Discovery of ignorant Practitioners of Physick, cap. 8. hath two strange stories to this purpose, what phansie is able to do. The one of a Parson's wife in Northamptonshire, An. 1607. that coming to a Physitian, and told by him that she was troubled with the Sciatica, as he conjectured, (a disease she was free from) the same night after her return, upon his words, fell into a grievous fit of a Sciatica. And such another example he hath of another good wife, that was so troubled with the cramp, after the same maner she came by it, because her Physitian did but name it. Sometimes death it self is

"If

* Occult. Philos. lib. 1. cap. 64.

y Lib. 3. de Lamiis, cap. 10. 2 Agrip. pa, lib. 1. cap. 61. *Sect. 3. memb. 1. subsect. 3. Malleus malefic. fol. 77. corpus mutari potest in diversas ægritudines, ex forti apprehensione. Fr. Valcs. 1. 5. cont. 6. nonnunquam etiam morbi diuturni consequuntur, quandoque curantur. Expedit. in Sinas, 1. 1. c. 9. tantum porro multi prædictoribus hisce tribuunt ut ipse metus fidem faciat: nam si prædictum iis fuerit tali die eos morbo corripiendos, ii ubi dies advenerit, in morbum incidunt, & vi metus afflicti, cum ægritudine, aliquando etiam cum morte colluctantur.

[ocr errors]

caused

e

caused by force of Phantasie. I have heard of one that coming by chance in company of him that was thought to be sick of the Plague (which was not so) fell down suddenly dead. Another was sick of the Plague with conceit. One seeing his fellow let blood, falls down in a sown. Another (saith Cardan out of Aristotle) fell down dead, (which is familiar to wo men at any ghastly sight) seeing but a man hanged. A Jew in France (saith Lodovicus Vives) came by chance over a dangerous passage, or plank, that lay over a Brook in the dark, without harm, the next day perceiving what danger he was in, fell down dead. Many will not beleeve such stories to be true, but laugh commonly, and deride when they hear of them; but let these men consider with themselves, as Peter Byarus illustrates it, If they were set to walk upon a plank on high, they would be giddy, upon which they dare securely walk upon the ground. Many (saith Agrippa) "strong hearted men otherwise, tremble at such sights, dazel, and are sick, if they look but down from an high place, and what moves them but conceit?" As some are so molested by Phantasie; so some again by Fancy alone, and a good conceit, are as easily recovered. We see commonly the Toothe ache, Gout, Fallingsickness, biting of a mad Dog, and many such maladies cured by Spels, Words, Characters, and Charms, and many green wounds by that now so much used Unguentum Armarium, magnetically cured, which Crollius and Goclenius in a book of late hath defended, Libavius in a just Tract as stifly contradicts, and most men controvert. All the world knows there is no vertue in such Charms, or Cures, but a strong conceit and opinion alone, as Pomponatius holds, "which forceth a motion of the humors, spirits, and blood, which takes away the cause of the malady from the parts affected." The like we may say of our Magicall effects, superstitious cures, and such as are done by Mountebanks and Wizards. "As by wicked incredulity many men are hurt (so saith Wierus of Charms, Spels, &c.) we finde in our experience, by the same means many are relieved." An Empirick oftentimes, and a silly Chyrurgian, doth more strange cures, then a rationall Physitian. Nymannus gives a reason, because the Patient puts his confidence in him, which Avicenna "prefers before Art, Pre

h

i

Subtil. 18. • Lib. 3. de anima, cap. de mel. f Lib. de Peste. Lib. 1. cap. 63. Ex alto despicientes aliqui præ timore contremiscunt, caligant, infirmantur; sic singultus, tebres, morbi comitiales quandoq; sequuntur, quandoque recedunt. Lib. de Incantatione, Imaginatio subitum humorum, & spirituum motum infert, unde vario affectu rapitur sanguis, ac unà morbificas causas partibus affectis eripit. * Lib. 3. c. 18. de præstig. Ut impia credulitate quis læditur, sic & levari eundem credibile est, usuque observatum. i Ægri persuasio & fiducia, omni arti & consilio & medicinæ præferenda. Avicen.

S 2

cepts,

cepts, and all Remedies whatsoever." "Tis opinion alone (saith * Cardan) that makes, or marrs Physitians, and he doth the best cures, according to Hippocrates, in whom most trust. So diversly doth this phantasie of ours affect, turn and winde, so imperiously command our bodies, which as another Proteus, or a Cameleon, can take all shapes; and is of such force (as Ficinus adds) that it can work upon others, as well as our selves." How can otherwise blear-eyes in one man, cause the like affection in another? Why doth one man's yawningTM, make another yawn? One man's pissing provoke a second many times to do the like? Why doth scraping of trenchers offend a third, or hacking of files? Why doth a Carkass bleed, when the murtherer is brought before it, some weeks after the murther hath been done? Why do Witches and old women fascinate and bewitch children: but as Wierus, Paracelsus, Cardan, Mizaldus, Valleriola, Cæsar Vanninus, Campanella, and many Philosophers think, the forcible imagination of the one party, moves and alters the spirits of the other. Nay more, they can cause and cure not only diseases, maladies, and several infirmities, by this means, as Avicenna de anim. l. 4. sect. 4. · supposeth, in parties remote, but move bodies from their places, cause thunder, lightning, tempests, which opinion Alkindus, Paracelsus, and some others approve of. So that I may certainly conclude, this strong conceit or imagination, is astrum hominis, and the rudder of this our ship, which reason should steer, but overborn by phantasie, cannot manage, and so suffers it self, and this whole vessel of ours to be over-ruled, and often overturned. Read more of this in Wierus l. 3. de Lamiis, c. 8, 9, 10. Franciscus Valesius med. controv. l. 5. cont. 6. Marcellus Donatus l. 2. c. 1. de hist. med. mirabil. Levinus Lemnius de occult. nat. mir. l. 1. c. 12. Cardan l. 18. de rerum var. Corn. Agrippa de occult. Philos. cap. 64, 65. Camerarius 1. Cent. cap. 54. horarum subcis. Nymannus morat de Imag. Laurentius, and him that is instar omnium, Fienus, a famous Physitian of Antwerp, that wrote three books de viribus imaginationis. I have thus far digressed, because this imagination is the medium deferens of passions, by whose means they work and produce many times prodigious effects; and as the phantasie is more or less intended or remitted, and their humours disposed, so do perturbations move, more or less, and take deeper impression.

1 Marcilius

* Plures sanat in quem plures confidunt. lib. de sapientia. Ficinus 1. 13. c. 18. de theolog. Platonica. Imaginatio est tanquam Proteus vel Chamaeleon, corpus proprium & alienum nonnunquam afficiens. fantes oscitent, Wierus.

in Cur osci

SUBSEC.

SUBSEC. III.

Division of Perturbations.

PERTURBATIONS and passions, which trouble_the

[ocr errors]

n

phantasie, though they dwell between the confines of Sense and Reason, yet they rather follow Sense than Rea son, because they are drowned in corporeal organs of Sense. They are commonly reduced into two inclinations, Irascible, and Concupiscible. The Thomists subdivide them into eleven, six in the Coveting, and five in the Invading. Aristotle reduceth all to Pleasure and Pain; Plato to Love and Hatred; Vives to Good and Bad. If good, it is present, and then we absolutely joy and love; or to come, and then we desire and hope for it: If evil, we absolutely hate it if present, it is Sorrow; if to come Fear: These four passions P Bernard compares" to the wheeles of a Chariot, by which we are carryed in this world. All other passions are subordinate unto these four, or six, as some will: Love, Joy, Desire, Hatred, Sorrow, Fear: The rest, as Anger, Envy, Emulation, Pride, Jealousie, Anxiety, Mercy, Shame, Discontent, Despair, Ambition, Avarice, &c. are reducible unto the first: and if they be immoderate, they consume the spirits, and melancholy is especially caused by them. Some few discreet men there are, that can govern themselves, and curb in these inordinate Affections, by Religion, Philosophy, and such divine Precepts, of meekness, patience, and the like; but most part for want of government, out of indiscretion, ignorance, they suffer themselves wholly to be led by sense; and are so far from repressing rebellious inclinations, that they give all incouragement unto them, leaving the raynes, and using all provocations to further them: bad by Nature, worse by Art, Discipline, Custome, Education, and a perverse will of their own, they follow on, wheresoever their unbridled Affections will transport them, and do more out of custome, self-will, than out of Reason. Contumax voluntas, as Melancthon cals it, malum facit: this stubborn will of ours perverts judgment, which sees and knows what should and ought to be done, and yet will not do it. Mancipia gula, slaves to their several lusts, and appetite, they precipitate and plunge themselves into a Labyrinth of cares, ■ T. W. Jesuit. P Ser. 35. Hæ quatuor passiones sunt tanquam rotæ in curru, quibus vehimur hoc mundo. quippe immoderatione, spiritus marcescunt. Fernel. 1. 1. Path. c. 18. consuetudine depravatur ingenium ne bene faciat. Prosper Calenus, 1. de atra bile. Plura faciunt homines è consuetudine, quam è ratione A teneris assucscere multum est. Video meliora protoq; deteriora sequor. Ovid.

læditur nisi à seipso.

3. de Anima.

S 3

9 Harum • Mala

Nemp

blinded

« السابقةمتابعة »