196 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



of these three to one: again, 4, by the last act of assimila 

 tion, as in seasonable sleep and external applications. III. 

 The renovation of parts worn out is performed two ways; 

 either by softening the habit of the body, as with supplying 

 applications, in the way of bath, plaster, or unction, of such 

 qualities as to insinuate into the parts, but extract nothing 

 from them; or by discharging the old, and substituting new 

 moisture, as in seasonable and repeated purging, bleeding, 

 and attenuating diets, which restore the bloom of the body. 

 Several rules for the conduct of the work are derivable 

 from these indications; but three of the more principal are 

 the following. And first, prolongation of life is rather to 

 be expected from stated diets, than from any common regi 

 men of food, or the virtues of particular medicines; for those 

 things that have force enough to turn back the course of na 

 ture, are commonly too violent to be compounded into a 

 medicine, much more to be mixed with the ordinary food, 

 and must therefore be administered orderly, regularly, and 

 at set periods. 2. We next lay it down as a rule, that the 

 prolongation of life be expected, rather from working upon 

 the spirits, and mollifying the parts, than from the manner 

 of alimentation. For as the human body, and the internal 

 structure thereof, may suffer from three things, viz., the 

 spirits, the parts, and aliments; the way of prolonging life 

 by means of alimentation is tedious, indirect, and winding; 

 but the ways of working upon the spirits and the parts, 

 much shorter; for the spirits are suddenly affected, both by 

 effluvia and the passions, which may work strangely upon 

 them; and the parts also by baths, unguents, or plasters, 

 which will likewise have sudden impressions. 3. Our last 

 precept is, that the softening of the external parts be at 

 tempted by such things as are penetrating, astringent, and 

 of the same nature with the body ; the latter are readily re 

 ceived and entertained, and properly soften: and pene 

 trating things are as vehicles to those that mollify, and 

 more easily convey, and deeply impress the virtue thereof; 

 while themselves also in some measure operate upon the 



