132 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, f IX. 3. 



and the like : but the scruples and superstitions of diet 

 and other regiment of the body in the sect of the Pytha 

 goreans, in the heresy of the Manichees, and in the law 

 of Mahomet, do exceed. So likewise the ordinances in 

 the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood 

 and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and 

 unclean for meat, are many and strict. Nay the faith 

 itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, 

 yet retaineth the use of fastings, abstinences, and other 

 macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, 

 and not figurative. The root and life of all which pre 

 scripts is (besides the ceremony) the consideration of that 

 dependency which the affections of the mind are submit 

 ted unto upon the state and disposition of the body. And 

 if any man of weak judgement do conceive that this suffer 

 ing of the mind from the body doth either question the 

 immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, 

 he may be taught in easy instances, that the infant in the 

 mother s womb is compatible with the mother and yet 

 separable ; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes 

 led by his servants and yet without subjection. As for 

 the reciprocal knowledge, which is the operation of the 

 conceits and passions of the mind upon the body, we see 

 all wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regiments 

 to their patients, do ever consider accidentia animi as of 

 great force to further or hinder remedies or recoveries : 

 and more specially it is an inquiry of great depth and 

 worth concerning imagination, how and how far it altereth 

 the body proper of the imaginant. For although it hath 

 a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same 

 degree of power to help. No more than a man can con 

 clude, that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to 

 kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign 



