412 HISTORY OF 



creatures, whether they be engendered of putrefaction, or 

 of sperm, for in all these things there is manifestly seen a 

 matter hard to break through, easy to yield. 



CANON IV. 



In all living creatures there are two kinds of spirits: 

 liveless spirits, such as are in bodies inanimate ; and a vital 

 spirit superadded. 



THE EXPLICATION. 



It was said before, that to procure long life, the body of 

 man must be considered ; first, as inanimate, and not re 

 paired by nourishment ; secondly, as animate, and repaired 

 by nourishment. For the former, consideration gives laws 

 touching consumption, the latter touching reparation. There 

 fore we must know, that there are in human flesh bones, 

 membranes, organs ; finally, in all the parts such spirits 

 diffused in the substance of them while they are alive, as 

 there are in the same things (flesh, bones, membranes, and 

 the rest) separated and dead, such as also remain in a car 

 cass ; but the vital spirit, although it ruleth them, and hath 

 some consent with them, yet it is far differing from them, 

 being integral, and subsisting by itself. Now there are 

 two special differences betwixt the liveless spirits and the 

 vital spirits. The one, that the liveless spirits are not con 

 tinued to themselves, but are, as it were, cut off and encom 

 passed with a gross body, which intercepts them, as air is 

 mixed with snow or froth ; but the vital spirit is all continued 

 to itself by certain conduit pipes through which it passeth, 

 and is not totally intercepted. And this spirit is twofold 

 also; the one branched, only passing through small pipes, 

 and, as it were, strings, the other hath a cell also, so as it 

 is not only continued to itself, but also congregated in a 

 hollow space in reasonable good quantity, according to the 

 analogy of the body ; and in that cell is the fountain of the 

 rivulets which branch from thence. The cell is chiefly in 

 the ventricles of the brain, which in the ignobler sort of 

 creatures are but narrow, insomuch that the spirits in them 

 seem scattered over their whole body, rather than celled ; 

 as may be seen in serpents, eels, and flies, whereof every of 

 their parts move long after they are cut asunder. Birds 

 also leap a good while after their heads are pulled off, be 

 cause they have little heads and little cells. But the nobler 

 sort of creatures have those ventricles larger, and man the 

 largest of all. The other difference betwixt the spirits is, 

 that the vital spirit hath a kind of inkindling, and is like a 



