Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/163

 external Senses, and also the Inward, and the Mind: of the threefold appetite of the Soul, and passions of the Will.== It is the opinion of some Divines, That God did not immediately creat the body of man, but by the assistance of the heavenly Spirits compound, and frame him; which opinion Alchinous, and Plato favor; thinking that God is the chief Creator of the whole world, of spirits both good and bad, and therefore immortalized them: but that all kinds of mortall animals were made at the command of God; for if he should have created them, they must have been immortall. The spirits therefore mixing Earth, Fire, Aire, and Water together, made of them all, put together, one body, which they subjected to the service of the soul, assigning in it severall Provinces to each power thereof, to the meaner of them, mean and low places: as to Anger the Midriff, to Lust the Womb, but to the more noble senses the Head, as the Tower of the whole body, and then the manifold Organs of Speech. They divide the Sense into External, and Internall. The externall are divided into five, known to every one, to which there are allotted five Organs, or subjects, as it were Foundations; being so ordered, that they which are placed in the more eminent part of the body, have a greater degree of purity. For the Eyes placed in the uppermost place, are the most pure, and have an affinity with the Nature of Fire, and Light: then the Ears have the second order of place, and purity, and are compared to the Aire: the Nostrils have the third order, and have a middle nature betwixt the Aire, and the Water; then the Organ of tasting, which is grosser and most like to the nature of Water: Last of all, the touching is diffused through the whole body, and is compared to the grossness of Earth. The more pure senses are those which perceive their Objects farthest off, as Seeing, and Hearing, then the Smelling,