a | The Hiftory of Life and Death. ) 
Ce nT a aa Ss 
tion, fo they excel in judgment , and prefer fafe things and found things before fpe- | 
— 
cious ; alfo they improve in Garrulity and Oftentation,for they feck the fruit of fpeech, 
while they are lefsable for ation : Soas it was not abfurd that the Poets feigned old 
Tithoz to be turned into a Grafhepper. 
a | 
eMLoveable ( anons of the Duration of Life and 
| 
Form of Death, 
Canon I. 
—GryOnfumption 2 not canfed, unlefsthat which is departed with by one body paffeth into 
another. 
The Explication. : 
Tiere isin Natureno Aanihslating, or Reducing to Nothing: therefore that which 
is confumed is cither refolved into Air, or turned into fome Body adjacent. So 
we fee a Spider, or Fly, or Ant in Amber, entombed in a more ftately Monument than 
Kings arc, to be laid up for Eternity, although they be but tender things, and foon 
diffipated : But the matter is this, that there is no air by, into which they fhould be 
refolyed; and the fzbftance of the Amber 1s fo heterogeneous, that it receives nothing 
of them. The like weconceive would be if a Stick,or Root, or fome fuch thing were 
_| buried in Quick-filver : alfo Wax,and Honey, and Gums have the fame Operation, but in 
part oncly, 
: a Canon II. 
[Here is in every Tangible body a Spirit, covered and encompaffed with the groffer 
parts of the body, and from it all Confumption and Diffolution hath the begin- 
| ming. 
f The Explication. i 
|} O Body known unto us here in the upper part of the Earth is without a Spirit, 
I either by 4ttenzation and Concoltion from the heat of the Heavenly Bodies, or 
by fome other way: for the Concavitses of Tangible things receive not Vacuum, but 
either Air, or the proper Spirit of the thing, And this sperzt whereof we {peak is not 
fome Virtue, or Energie, or Ad, or a Erie, but plainly a Body, rare and invifible ; 
notwith{tanding circumfcribed by Place, Quantitative, Real, Neither again is that 
‘Spirit Air, (no more than Wineis Water) but abody rarefied, of kin to Air, though 
‘much different fromit. Now the grofler parts of bodies (being dull things, and not 
apt for motion) would laft along tine ; but the Spirit is that which troubleth, and 
plicketh, and undermineth them, and convertcth the moifture of thebody, and what- 
foever it isable to digeft,into new Spirit ; and then as well the pre-exifting Spirit of the 
} body as that newly made flieaway together bydegrees. This is beft feen by the Dz- 
minution of the weight in bodies dricd through Persfiration: for neither all that which |. 
is iffued forth was Spirit whenthe body was ponderous, neither was it not Spirit when 
it iflued forth. 
_ 
Canon Til. 
He Spirit ifluing forth Drieth ; Detained and working within either Melteth, or Pu- 
trefieth, or Vivifieth. 
; : _ The Explication. 
T Fete are four Procefles of the Spirit, to drefattion, to Colliqnuation , Putre- 
fatlion, to Generation of bodies. varefattion is not the proper work of the Spirit, 
but of the groffer parts after the Spiritiffued forth: for then they contraét them- 
felves partly by their flight of Vacuum, partly by the waéon of the Homogeneals : as 
appears inall things which are arcfied by age, and in the drier fort of bodies which 
| have paffcd the fire, as Bricks, (/-ar coal, Bread. colliquationisthe mere work of the 
_ Spirit - neither is it done but when they are excited by heat: for when the Spirits 
dilating themfelves; yet not getting forth, do infinuate and difperfe themfelves 
| among the grofler parts, and fo make them foft and apt to run, as it is in AZetalls and 
wak: for Metalls and all tenacious things arc apt to inhibit the Spirit, that being 
. K. _ excited | ao a 
oo 
