VITAL SPIRIT. CCCCX1X 



metals rust, fluids turn sour; and, in animals, when the 

 spirit which held the parts together escapes, all things are 

 dissolved, and return to their own natures or principles: 

 the oily parts to themselves, the aqueous to themselves, 

 &c. upon which necessarily ensues that odour, that 

 imctuosity, that confusion of parts, observable in putrefac 

 tion.&quot; So true is it, that in nature all is beauty; that, 

 notwithstanding our partial views &amp;gt;and distressing associa 

 tions, the forms of death, misshapen as we suppose them, 

 are but the tendencies to union in similar natures. 



The knowledge of this science Bacon considers of the Import- 

 utmost importance to our well beins; : that the action of ance of the 



science. 



the spirit is the cause of consumption and dissolution ; 

 is the agent which produces all bodily and mental effects; 

 influences the will in the production of all animal motions, 

 as in the whale and the elephant; and is the cause of all 

 our cheerfulness or melancholy : that the perfection of our 

 being consists, in the proper portion of this spirit properly 

 animated, or the proper portion of excitability properly 

 excited; that its presence is life, its absence death. 



This subject, deemed of such importance by Bacon, has 

 been much neglected, and occasionally been supposed to 

 be a mere creature of the imagination, (a} 



(a) Shaw, in his edition of Bacon says, &quot; The whole of this inquiry still 

 remains strangely neglected, to the great disadvantage of natural philosophy, 

 which seems almost a dead thing without it.&quot; 



Dugald Stuart, in his dissertation, says, &quot; If on some occasions, he 

 assumes the existence of animal spirits, as the medium of communication 

 between soul and body, it must be remembered that this was then the 

 universal belief of the learned ; and that it was at a much later period not 

 less confidently avowed by Locke. Nor ought it to be overlooked (I 

 mention it to the credit of both authors), that in such instances the fact is 

 commonly so stated, as to render it easy for the reader to detach it from 

 the theory. As to the scholastic questions concerning the nature and 

 essence of mind, whether it be extended or unextended ? whether it have 

 any relation to space or to time ? or whether (as was contended by others) 



