488 NATURAL HISTORY. 



instantly make a transcursion throughout the whole 

 body : so that by this they did insinuate, that no 

 distance of place, nor want of indisposition of matter, 

 could hinder magical operations ; but that, for exam 

 ple, we might here in Europe have sense and feeling 

 of that which was done in China ; and likewise we 

 might work any effect without and against matter ; 

 and this not holpen by the co-operation of angels or 

 spirits, but only by the unity and harmony of nature. 

 There were some also that stayed not here ; but went 

 farther, and held, that if the spirit of man, whom 

 they call the microcosm, do give a fit touch to the 

 spirit of the world, by strong imaginations and 

 beliefs, it might command nature ; for Paracelsus, 

 and some darksome authors of magic, do ascribe to 

 imagination exalted, the power of miracle-working 

 faith. With these vast and bottomless follies men 

 have been in part entertained. 



But we, that hold firm to the works of God, and 

 to the sense, which is God s lamp, lucerna Dei spira- 

 culum hominis, will inquire with all sobriety and 

 severity, whether there be to be found in the footsteps 

 of nature, any such transmission and influx of im- 

 materiate virtues ; and what the force of imagination 

 is ; either upon the body imaginant, or upon another 

 body : wherein it will be like that labour of Her 

 cules, in purging the stable of Augeas, to separate 

 from superstitious and magical arts and observations, 

 any thing that is clean and pure natural ; and not to 

 be either contemned or condemned. And although we 

 shall have occasion to speak of this in more places 



