mour of the eye, and farther affirms, that he never faw any thing in all his life, more beautiful than those two things.

Secondly, It may be called the filver cord, from its place in which it is feated in the body: it is placed very deep, fecret, and secure; Job faith, Surely there is a vein for the filver, Job xxviii. 1. that is, there is an intricate, hidden, and mysterious cavity in the earth, in which this lunar mineral doth more fecurely pass its branches; juft thus the cord of our body, as foon as ever it hath left its original, it is paffed into the most inward and fecret cavity of the fpine, which by reason of that admiration and reverence the ancients had for it, they called, ispa oigiyla, the holy pipe; and when in feveral places it paffeth thencefrom, it is conveyed all along with wonderful artifice, both for fecrefy and security, which is continued to the most minute filaments; for throughout the whole body, it lieth lower, and deeper, and fafer, than the veins, or arteries, or any other common conveyers in the body of man.

Laftly, and chiefly, It is called the filver cord, because of its excellency: For as filver above all other minerals whatfoever (fave only that most abfolute and perfect one of gold) is, and ought to be most valued and esteemed ; fo is, and ought, this part we are now speaking of, next unto that most absolute and per

fect part, the brain, which in the very next following symptom is affimilated unto gold. The ingenious chymifts take pleasure to liken the several metals they find in the bowels of earth, to the heavenly luminaries, who after they have compared the most perfect, aptly to the fun; they in the next place, liken this of filver as aptly to the moon, and therefore decipher it alfo by the self-fame character; fhewing us hereby, that as the moon in heaven is far more glorious and excellent, than all other celeftial bodies whatfoever, (the fun alone excepted) fo filver in the earth, above all terrestrial bodies whatsoever (gold alone excepted) hath the fame pre-eminence.

Micat inter omnes,
-Velut inter ignes,

Luna minores.

And this dignity hath the spinal marrow with all its branches above all other parts of the body, except the brain; it hath been in fuch esteem among philofophers, that the best of them hath acknowledged it the foundation of life; and the great master of physicians hath dignified it with the name of av, thereby clearly intimating, that if vitality be not chiefly therein placed, yet the highest and most noble operations thereof are performed thereupon. And fuch an exact likeness there

*Plato in Timæo. Hippoc.

is

is between the nerves and filver, that they do by a mutual and reciprocal metaphor, fuitably exprefs one another, in the two feveral worlds.

For as the nerves or finews are here said to be the filver of the microcofm, or little world; fo is filver as aptly said to be the finews of the macrocofm, or greater world. There being nothing in the whole world that is vigorously carried on among men, but by the help thereof: filver is the finews of war and of peace, of merchandize and of tillage; nay, I may farther add, of learning, and of virtue too.

Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipfam
Præmia fi tollas.

Now, as all the works of the greater world foon come to nought, if the influences of the finews thereof be intercepted; so do all those of the leffer world, if the filver thereof perish and decay; and therefore the loosening of the filver cord is here given as an undoubted fign of inftant diffolution. For, as it was faid of the tabernacle, That it was spoiled, and near its utter ruin, when the cords thereof were broken, Jer. x. 20. Ifa. xxxiii. 20. so may it also be faid of this earthly tabernacle of our bodies, when we fhall be unftrung, and the cords of our bodies broken asunder; we must then expect fuddenly to be diffolved: The word here

is variously tranflated, rumpatur, elongetur, contrahatur, revertatur, diffolvatur; which variety may give very great light unto the several causes of the symptom here intended: but because such a narrow fcrutiny may make a digreffion from what is here intended, I fhall for the present pass it by, and only take notice of the symptom itself which is here aimed at ; and, that the Latin word diffolvatur, and the English loofened, do directly point at, namely, the folution of the nerves or marrow, called in Latin (from the Greeks and their radix xúw, folvo) paralyfis, and in English the palfy: Sometimes this folution happeneth only to one part of the filver cord, which caufeth paralyfis particularis, and then the enlivening influence of the animal spirits is hindered only from those parts of the body, to which that doth immediately tend, and fo those parts become wholly deprived both of sense and motion; death hath already taken poffeffion of a leg, or an arm, or the half of that man, that is so far paralytick, hardly or never more to be difpoffeffed; and therefore in our language it is well ftiled the dead palfy. Sometimes it happeneth to the head of the fpinal marrow, and so hindereth the influence of the fpirits upon the whole filver cord, and confequently takes away all fenfe and motion from all the fubjected parts; and this caufeth paralyfis univerfalis, which at all times and upon all occafions, gives a very pro

bable

bable prognostick; but in the decrepit age of man, a most certain and infallible one, of immediate death.

Or the golden bowl be broken.

The fymptom laft treated of, had reference to the rivulets of animality; this we are now speaking of relates to the fountain: For we must know that the foul of man, the queen regent of all his operations, makes the head the royal palace of her refidence, from whence fhe gives forth all her precepts, edicts, and commands, for the regulating and actuating all the fubjected parts of the body. Now the parts of the head are of two forts, either the containing, or the contained parts thereof: The last of these, namely the encompaffed, or contained parts, are the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the medulla, with all those several smaller parts, which curious obfervers have found out to belong to any of them; which I shall not so much as mention, because they are not fo directly pointed at in this place. And I do here, as I have done all along, industriously avoid all things, especially all terms of art, or fecond intentions, that do not immediately conduce to the understanding of the symptom under hand: But we must not so exclude these parts as to judge them not all concerned in this expreffion; for upon the breaking of the golden bowl, the brain itself, with all the contained parts appertaining