Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/205

Rh several appellations for wind, which is the ruling element in every compound, and into which they all resolve upon their corruption? farther, what is life itself, but, as it is commonly called, the breath of our nostrils? whence it is very justly observed by naturalists, that wind still continues of great emolument in certain mysteries not to be named, giving occasion for those happy epithets of turgidus, and inflatus, applied either to the emittent, or recipient organs.

By what I have gathered out of ancient records, I find the compass of their doctrine took in two and thirty points, wherein it would be tedious to be very particular. However, a few of their most important precepts, deducible from it, are by no means to be omitted; among which the following maxim was of much weight; that since wind had the master-share, as well as operation in every compound, by consequence, those beings must be of chief excellence, wherein that primordium appears most prominently to abound; and therefore man is in the highest perfection of all created things, as having, by the great bounty of philosophers, been endued with three distinct animas or winds, to which the sage Æolists, with much liberality, have added a fourth of equal necessity, as well as ornament with the other three; by this quartum principium, taking in our four corners of the world; which gave occasion to that renowned cabalist, Bumbastus, of placing the body of a man in due position to the four cardinal points. In