Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/301

 exceed the space of life by the decay of that member, by which account of a hundred years he circumscribed the life of man. And this faith Pliny was the heresie of the Egyptians. The motions also of the members of mens bodies answer to the Celestial motions, and every man hath in himself the motion of his heart, which answers to the motion of the Sun, and being diffused through the Arteries into the whole body, signifies to us by a most sure rule, years, months, dayes, hours, and minutes. Moreover, there is a certain Nerve found by the Anatomists about the nod of the neck, which being touched doth so move all the members of the body, that every one of them move according to its proper motion; by which like touch Aristotle thinks the members of the world are moved by God. And there are two veins in the neck, which being held hard presently the mans strength failes, and his senses are taken away until they be loosened. Therefore the eternal Maker of the world when he was to put the soul into the body, as into its habitation, first made a fit lodging worthy to receive it, and endows the most excellent soul with a most beautiful body, which then the soul knowing its own divinity, frames and adorns for its own habitation. Hence the people of AEthiopia, which were governed by the wisdom of Gymnosophists, as Aristotle witnessed, did make them Kings, not of those which were most strong, and wealthy, but those onely which were most proper and beautiful; for they conceived that the gallantry of the minde did depend upon the excellencie of the body. Which many Philosophers, as well ancient as modern, considering, such as searched into the secrets of causes hid in the very Majesty of Nature, were bold to assert, that there was no fault of, and no disproportion in the body, which the vice and intemperanec of the minde did not follow, because it is certain that they do increase, thrive, and operate by the help one of the other. CHAP.