THE SECOND BOOK 





called Cosmetic ; art of Activity, which is called Athletic ; 

 and art Voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth eruditus 

 luxus. This subject of man's body is of all other things in 

 nature most susceptible of remedy ; but then that remedy 

 is most susceptible of error. For the same subtlety of the 

 subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing ; and 

 therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact. 



To speak therefore of Medicine, and to resume that we 

 have said, ascending a little higher : The ancient opinion 

 that man was Microcosmus, an abstract or model of the 

 world, hath been fantastically strained by Paracelsus and 

 the alchemists, as if there were to be found in man's body 

 certain correspondences and parallels, which should have 

 respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, 

 which are extant in the great world. But this much is 

 evidently true, that of all substances which nature hath 

 produced, man's body is the most extremely compounded. 

 For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and 

 water ; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits ; man 

 by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, 

 water, and the manifold alterations, dressings, and prepara- 

 tions of these several bodies, before they come o be his 

 food and aliment. Add hereunto that beasts have a more 

 simple order of life, and less change of affections to work 

 upon their bodies ; whereas man in his mansion, sleep, 

 exercise, passions, hath infinite variations ; and it cannot be 

 denied but that the Body of man of all other things is of 

 the most compounded mass. The Soul on the other side 

 is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed, 



Purumque reliquit 

 Aether eum sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem: 



So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no 

 rest, if that principle be true that Motus rerum est rapidus 

 extra locum^ placidus in loco. But to the purpose. This 

 variable composition of man's body hath made it as an 

 instrument easy to distemper ; and therefore the poets did 

 well to conjoin Music and Medicine in Apollo : because 

 the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of 



