4f)0 PNEUMAT1CAL BODY OF BACON. 



matter, and operated with consummate intel- 

 ligence in the formation of mineral, vegetable, 

 and animal bodies ; that vital heat is generated 

 in the blood by fermentation, through the agency 

 of the animal spirits, derived from the air by 

 breathing ; that food is dissolved in the stomach 

 by means of an acid liquor, and not by the agency 

 of heat, because digestion is carried on in cold 

 blooded animals, and arrested in man during 

 fever in short, that all the functions of life are 

 governed by the immediate agency of an intelli- 

 gent principle.* 



The pneumatical body of Bacon was clearly 

 derived from the trvev^a of the later Greek 

 philosophers ; for in his Treatise on Life and 

 Death, he represents it " as the master work- 

 man of all effects in the living body ;" while, in 

 various other parts of his Natural History, he de- 

 scribes it as an imponderable spirit, and the cause 

 of evaporation, germination, fermentation, putre- 

 faction, &c. It is therefore evident that Bacon 

 regarded it as the efficient cause of mechanical, 

 chemical, and vital action. Yet, so far was he 

 from recognising its identity with the elemen- 

 tary fire of antiquity, that he represents heat as 



* This doctrine, which seems to have been almost universal 

 among the ancients, has been recently revived by Isaac Taylor, 

 who maintains that, in all cases, mind alone is capable of put- 

 ting matter in motion ; that it is the cause not only of muscular 

 contraction, but of secretion, nutrition, &c. (Physical Theory 

 of another Life.) 



