Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/330

 The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected into art, but hath been handled dispersedly; and it hath the same relation or anti strophe that the former hath. For the consideration is double: "Either how, and how far the humours and affects of the body do alter or work upon the mind; or again, how and how far the passions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body." The former of these hath been inquired and considered as a part and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition. For the physician prescribeth cures of the mind in phrensies and melancholy passions; and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to confirm the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like: but the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regimen of the body in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed. So likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood and fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict. Nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastings, abstinences, and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and not figurative. The root and life of all which prescripts is, besides the ceremony, the consideration of that dependency which the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the state and disposition of the body. And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught in easy instances, that the infant in the mother's womb is compatible with the mother and yet separable and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants, and yet without subjection. As for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the operation of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the body, we see all the wise physicians, in the prescriptions of their regimens to their patients, do ever consider "accidentia animi" as of great force to further or hinder remedies or recoveries: and more especially it is an inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far it altereth the body proper of the imaginant. For although it hath a manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of power to help; no more than a man can conclude, that because there be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness But the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as Socrates said, "a Delian diver," being difficult and profound. But unto all this knowledge "de communi vinculo," of the concordances between the mind and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary, which considereth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better inquired. For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the brain; animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with pride) in the heart; and concupiscence or sensuality in the liver, deserveth not to be despised; but much less to be allowed. So then we have constituted, as in our own wish and advice, the inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge to be handled apart.

The knowledge that concerneth man's Body is divided as the good of man's body is divided, unto which it referreth. The good of man's body is of four kinds, health, beauty, strength, and pleasure: so the knowledges are medicine, or art of cure; art of decoration, which is 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 subtilty of the subject doth cause large possibility and easy failing; and therefore the inquiry ought to be 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 alchymists, 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 thus 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 preparations of these several bodies, before they come to 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:

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