of the mind by the lineaments of the body; the second is the Interpretation of Natural Dreams, which discovers the state and disposition of the body by the agitations of the mind. In the former of these I note a deficience. For Aristotle has very ingeniously and diligently handled the structure of the body when at rest, but the structure of the body when in motion (that is the gestures of the body) he has omitted; which nevertheless are equally within the observations of art, and of greater use and advantage. For the lineaments of the body disclose the dispositions and inclinations of the mind in general; but the motions and gestures of the countenance and parts do not only so, but disclose likewise the seasons of access, and the present humour and state of the mind and will. For as your Majesty says most aptly and elegantly, "As the tongue speaketh to the ear so the gesture speaketh to the eye." And well is this known to a number of cunning and astute persons; whose eyes dwell upon the faces and gestures of men, and make their own advantage of it, as being most part of their ability and wisdom. Neither indeed can it be denied, but that it is a wonderful index of simulation in another, and an excellent direction as to the choice of proper times and seasons to address persons; which is no small part of civil wisdom. Nor let any one imagine that a sagacity of this kind may be of use with respect to particular persons, but cannot fall under a general rule; for we all laugh and weep and frown and blush nearly in the same fashion; and so it is (for the most part) in the more subtle motions. But if any one be reminded here of chiromancy, let him know that it is a vain

1 Basilicon Doron, book iii.

imposture, not worthy to be so much as mentioned in discourses of this nature. With regard to the Interpretation of Natural Dreams, it is a thing that has been laboriously handled by many writers, but it is full of follies. At present I will only observe that it is not grounded upon the most solid foundation of which it admits; which is, that when the same sensation is produced in the sleeper by an internal cause which is usually the effect of some external act, that external act passes into the dream. A like oppression is produced in the stomach by the vapour of indigestion and by an external weight superimposed; and therefore persons who suffer from the nightmare dream of a weight lying on them, with a great array of circumstances. A like pendulous condition of the bowels is produced by the agitation of the waves at sea, and by wind collected round the diaphragm; therefore hypochondriacal persons often dream that they are sailing and tossing on the sea. There are likewise innumerable instances of this kind.

The latter branch of the doctrine of the League (which I have termed Impression) has not yet been collected into an art, but only comes in sometimes dispersedly in the course of other treatises. It has the same relation or antistrophe that the former has. For the consideration is twofold; either how and how far the humours and temperament of the body alter and work upon the mind; or again, how and how far the passions or apprehensions of the mind alter and work upon the body. For the physicians prescribe drugs to heal mental diseases, as in the treatment of phrensy and melancholy; and pretend also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to fortify the heart and

thereby confirm the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the like. But the diets, and choice of meats and drinks, the ablutions, and other observances of the body, in the sect of the Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet, exceed all measure. So likewise the orlinances in the ceremonial law interdicting the eating of the blood and fat, and distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict. Nay, the Christian faith itself (although clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony) yet retains the use of fastings, abstinences, and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things not merely ritual, but also profitable. The root and life of all which prescripts (besides the ceremony and the exercise of obedience) consist in that of which we are speaking, namely the sympathy of the mind with the state and disposition of the body. But if any man of weak judgment conceive that these impressions of the body on the mind either question the immortality of the soul, or derogate from its sovereignty over the body, a slight answer may serve for so slight a doubt. Let him take the case of an infant in the mother's womb, which is affected by that which affects the mother, and yet is in due time delivered and separated from her body; or of monarchs who, though powerful, are sometimes controlled by their servants, and yet without abatement of their majesty royal.

As for the reciprocal part (which is the operation of the mind and its passions upon the body), it also has found a place in medicine. For there is no physician of any skill who does not attend to the accidents of the nind, as a thing most material towards recoveries, and

of the greatest force to further or hinder other remedies. But another question pertinent to this subject has been but sparingly inquired into, and nowise in proportion to its depth and worth; namely how far (setting the affections aside) the very imagination of the mind, or a thought strongly fixed and exalted into a kind of faith, is able to alter the body of the imaginant. For although it has a manifest power to hurt, yet it follows not that it has the same degree of power to help; no more indeed than a man can conclude, that because there are pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness. Such an inquiry would surely be of noble use; though it needs (as Socrates says 1) a Delian diver; for it lies deep. Again, among those doctrines concerning the League, or the concordances between the mind and body, there is none more necessary than the inquiry concerning the proper seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind occupy in the body and its organs. Which kind of knowledge has not been without its followers; but what has been done in it is in most parts either disputed or slightly inquired; so that more diligence and acuteness is requisite. For the opinion of Plato,2 who placed the understanding in the brain, as in a castle; animosity (which he unfitly enough called anger, seeing it is more related to swelling and pride) in the heart; and concupiscence and sensuality in the liver; deserves neither to be altogether despised nor to be eagerly received. Neither again is that arrangement of the intellectual faculties (imagination, reason, and memory) according to the respective ventricles of the

1 Diog. Laert. ii. 22. and ix. 12.

2 Plato, Timæus, p. 71.

brain, destitute of error. Thus then have I explained the doctrine concerning the nature of man undivided, and likewise the league between the mind and body.

CHAP. II.

Division of the doctrine concerning the Body of Man into Medicine, Cosmetic, Athletic, and Voluptuary. Division of Medicine into three offices; viz. the Preservation of Health, the Cure of Diseases, and the Prolongation of Life; and that the last division concerning the Prolongation of Life ought to be kept separate from the other two.

THE doctrine that concerns man's body receives the same division as the good of man's body, to which it refers. The good of man's body is of four kinds; Health, Beauty, Strength, and Pleasure. The knowledges therefore are in number the same; Medicine, Cosmetic, Athletic, and Voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calls "educated luxury.”

1

Medicine is a most noble art, and according to the poets has a most illustrious pedigree. For they have represented Apollo as the primary god of medicine, and given him a son Esculapius, likewise a god, professor of the same; seeing that in nature the sun is the author and source of life, the physician the preserver and as it were the second fountain thereof. But a far greater honour accrues to medicine from the works of our Saviour, who was the physician both of soul and body; and as he made the soul the peculiar object of

1 Tac. Ann. xvi. 18.