Observations upon Anthroposophia Theomagica

by Henry More (as Alazonomastix Philalethes)

Henry More (1614–1687), Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, was the most prolific of the Cambridge Platonists — the school of philosophical theologians who sought to reconcile reason, religion, and the new natural philosophy of the seventeenth century. In 1650, a young Welsh alchemist named Thomas Vaughan (1621–1666), writing under the pseudonym "Eugenius Philalethes," published two Hermetic treatises in rapid succession: Anthroposophia Theomagica, a mystical cosmology claiming direct access to divine truth through alchemical practice, and Anima Magica Abscondita, a companion work on the hidden soul of the world. More was appalled.

Within months, More published this devastating response under his own pseudonym, "Alazonomastix Philalethes" — a name meaning "the whip of boasters who love truth." It takes the form of one hundred and one numbered observations, proceeding section by section through both of Vaughan's books, quoting his words and dismantling them with a mixture of philosophical argument, satirical wit, and genuine indignation. More accuses Vaughan of obscurantism, logical confusion, scriptural abuse, and above all of mistaking the products of a melancholic and overheated imagination for genuine divine illumination — the same diagnosis he would later expand in his Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (1656).

The feud between More and Vaughan became one of the great intellectual quarrels of the English Renaissance. Vaughan responded with The Man-Mouse Taken in a Trap (1650), More counter-attacked with The Second Lash of Alazonomastix (1651), and the exchange continued through several more volleys. The archive holds both of Vaughan's original treatises — Anthroposophia Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita — alongside More's Enthusiasmus Triumphatus. This text completes the dialogue: Vaughan speaks, More responds, and the reader can judge for themselves.

The text was printed in London by J. Flesher in 1655, though composed in 1650–1651.

To Eugenius Philalethes the Author of Anthroposophia Theomagica, and Anima Magica Abscondita.

THE Great deserved fame that followed this noble work of yours (the due recompense of all eminent performances) engaged me to peruse the same, with much eagerness of mind, and yet with no lesse attention; I being one of those, that professe themselves much more willing to learn, then able to teach. And that you may see some specimen of the fruits of your labour and my proficiency, I thought fit to present you with these few Observations. Which, considering the barrennesse of the Matrix, (as you Chymists love to call it) in which they were conceived, may be termed rather many then few: And that imputed to the alone virtue, or Magicall Multiplication, or Theomagical fecundity of your Divine Writings, not at all to the sterility of my disfurnished Braine. Which now notwithstanding, having gathered both warmth and moisture from the heat and luxuriancy of your youthfull fansie, findes it selfe after a manner transformed into your own complexion, and translated into the same temper with your selfe. In so much that although I cannot with the height of a protestation in the presence of my glorious God (as your selfe has gallantly done (in pag. 50. lin. 17. of Anthropos. Theomag.) affirme that the affection and zeale to the truth of my Creatour has forced mee to write, yet I dare professe in the word of an honest man, that nothing but an inplacable enmity to immorality and foolery has moved me at this time to set Pen to Paper. And I confesse my indignation is kindled the more, having so long observed that this disease is growne even Epidemicall in our Nation. viz. to desire to be filled with high-swolne words of Vanity, rather then to feed on sober Truth, and to heate and warme our selves rather by preposterous and fortuitous imaginations, then to move cautiously in the light of a purified minde and improved Reason. Wherefore I being heightned with the same Zeale of discountenancing of Vanitie and conceitednesse, that your selfe is of promoting the Truth, you will permit to me the same freedome in the prosecution thereof. For as we are growne neare akin in temper and complexion,

so we ought mutually to allow each other in our Actings alike, according to our common Temper and Nature, and the accustomed Liberty of the Philalethean Family. In confidence whereof till wee meete againe in the next Page, I take leave and subscribe my selfe,

Observations upon Anthroposophia Theomagica, and Anima Magica Abscondita.

SECT. I.

Eugenius taxed of vain glory. Three main ways he atempts to approve himself an extraordinary knowing man to the world. His affectation of seeming a Magician discovered in his so highly magnifying Agrippa, in the dress of his Title-page, and his submissive address to the Rosie-brotherhood. His indiscreet exprobration of ignorance to the Aristoteleans for not knowing the very essence or substance of the Soule. His uncivil calling Aristotle an Ape, and ignorant taxation of his School concerning the frame of the world. The disproportionable Delineation of Eugenius his World-Animal; and his unjust railing against Aristotles writings, which he uncivilly tearms his Vomit.

ANd now brother Philalethes, that we are so well met, let us begin to act according to the freenesse of our tempers, and play the Tom Tell-troths. And you indeed have done your part already. My course is next. Which must be spent in the Observations I told you of, upon those profound Treatises of yours, Anthroposophia Theomagica, and Anima Magica Abscondita.

And my first and general Observation is this, That the genius of my brother Eugenies magical Discourse is such, that Simon Magus-like, he seems to have a very liquoursome desire to be thought to be [non-Latin text],

some great man in the World. And for the prosecution of this main end, he layes himself out chiefly in these three subordinate designes. First, to be thought to have found out some new concerning Truths, hitherto undiscovered. Secondly, to be more learned & knowing then Aristotle, that great light of these European parts, for these many hundred years together: and not onely so, but to be so far above him, that he may be his Master, that he may tew him, and lugge him, and lash him more cruelly, then any Orbilius or cholerick Pedagogue, his puny scholars. Thirdly and lastly, that he may strike home for the getting of a fame of profound learning indeed, he do's most affectedly and industriously raise in the Reader a strong surmise and suspicion that he is very deeply seen in Art Magick, and is a very knowing Disciple of Agrippa, and puts in as far for the name of a Magician, as honesty will permit, and safety from that troublesome fellow Hopkins the Witch-finder.

And indeed the very clatter of the Title of his Book, Anthroposophia Theomagica, sounds not much unlike some conjuration, or charm, that would either call up, or scare away the Devil. And Zoroaster forsooth, at the bottome of the page, that old reputed Magician, must stand as an Assistent to this preludiall Exorcism; with this Oracle in his mouth, [non-Latin text], Audi ignis vocem. That is in plain English, Hear the voice or noise of fire. Me thinks I smell a Gunpowder-plot. What can this voice of fire be? Why! how now Anthroposophus! you intend certainly to make the Rosy Brotherhood merry with squibs and crackers. For certainly your Mysteriousnesse does not mean those lesser or greater fire-squirts, Carbines or Cannons. So might the Fratres R. C. be received with like solemnity that those Apostles at

                    Rome, the Cardinals. But the word [non-Latin text], (which implies a subsultation, or skipping this way and that way) which is in the context of this Oracle, seems to allude to, and prognosticate of, Fire-crackers and Squibs rather then Cannons or Carbines. But how ever if this dog-trick fail, Anthroposophus has another as puerile and innocent a Present, to entertain that Reverend Fraternity: And that's a very queint and trim Latine Epistle, which he, like a good Schoolboy, to shew them what a good Proficient he is grown in his Latine Grammar, presents to their assembled Gravities. 'Tis a good child, Anthroposophus! and 'tis well done. Qui nescit obedire, nescit imperare. He that knows not how to submit himself in the form of a breeching boy to the Fratres R. C. how can he know so unmercifully to whip and domineer over poor Aristotle?

Surely, Anthroposophus! when the Rosy brethren ride swooping through the Air in their Theomagicall chariots, they will hail down sugar plums, and Carua's on thy blessed pate, if thou hast but the good hap at that time to walk abroad with thy hat off, to cool thy heated nodle.

But stay a while, I am afraid I am mistaken. It may well be, that Anthroposophus rides along with them, as being the Proloquutour of their Assembly. For he writes himself Oratoris vestri. How can that belong to a short Epistle, unlesse it were some Title of office? But it may be my Gentleman, being not so dextrous and quick in Latine as in English, measured the length of it more by his labour then the lines, and thought that that which took him so much pains, could not prove so little as an Epistle; and therefore would insinuate that it was an Oration made to the Fratres R. C. I suppose at their meeting at Fryer Bacon's brasen head in Oxford.

Well [•] be it what it will be, my observation here, Anthroposophus, is, that you would also by your addresse to the Fratres R. C. make the world bel[•]eve, that you are now mellowing a pace, and are not much unripe for admission into that Society. And then Anthroposophus would be a rare Theomagician indeed. But enough of this vein of mirth and levity.

Now Philalethes! your brother Tel-troth, intends to fall more closely on your bones, and to discover whether you have not a greater minde to seem to be wise then to be so indeed, or to make others so. But yet you may assure your self, I will onely find flaws, not make any in you; but rather candidly passe over what may receive any tolerably good interpretation, nor touch the sore any where, but where I may hope to heal it, either in your self or others. And that this may be done without any tedious taking a pieces of what you have put together, I shall fairly passe from page to page without any Analyticall Artifice.

And truly from the First page to the middle of the Fourth page of your Epistle to the Reader, there be many pretty, smart, elegant, humourous contextures of phrases and things. But there, presently after Fryer Bacons Fool and his fellow, you fall upon our Peripateticks as such superficiall Philosophasters, because they cannot lay open to you the very essence of the Soul. Why! Anthroposophus! can you tell the very essence of any Substantiall thing? Hereby you show your self very raw & unexercised in meditation, in that you have not yet taken notice what things are knowable, what not. And thus may you have as ill a trick put upon you, for want of this discerning, as the old dim and doting woman had, that with her rotten teeth endeavoured to crack a round pebble stone in stead of a nut, which was a thing impossible.

Nor will any mans understanding, be it as sharp as it will, enter the bare essence of any thing. But the nearest we can get, is, to know the powers, and operations, the respects, and fitnesses that things have in themselves, or toward others. Which is so true, that any man in a little search, will presently satisfie himself in the evidence thereof.

From the middle of this Fourth page to the middle of the sixth, is continued a dance of Anticks, or various ridiculous shiftings and postures of phansie[•] to make Aristotle and his followers contemptible. But such generall railings, as they are mis-beseeming the Writer, so they teach the Reader nothing but that the Authour of them is a Mome, or a Mimick, and more like an Ape by far then him that he compares to one. If this man clap the wings so when he has really got the foil, (for hitherto he has charged Aristotle with no particular piece of ignorance but of what is impossible to be known) what would he do if he h[•]d the victory?

The second particular taxation (for generals I hold nothing, Dolosus ambulat in universalibus) is that the Peripateticks fancy God to have made the World, as a Carpenter of stone and timber. But this is false, because they give an inward principle of motion to all naturall bodies, and there is one continuity of all, as much as of the parts of water among themselves. But their grand fault is that they do not say the World is Animate. But is not yours far greater, Anthroposophus! that gives so ridiculous unproportionable account of that Tenet? The whole World is an Animal, say you, whose flesh is the earth, whose bloud is the water, the air the outward refreshing spirit in which it breath[•], the interstellar skies his vitall waters, the Stars his sensitive fire. But are not you a meer Animal your self to say so? For it is as irrationall and incredible, as if you should tell us a tale of a Beast, whose bloud and flesh put together, bears not so great a proportion to the rest of the more fluid parts of the Animal, suppose his vitall and animal spirits, as a mite in a cheese to the whole globe of the earth. And beside this, how shall this water which you call bloud, be refreshed by the air that is warmer then it? And then those waters which you place in the outmost parts towards his dappled or spotted skin the coelum stellatum, what over-p[•]oportionated plenty of them is there there? In so much that this creature you make a diseased Animall from its first birth, and ever labouring with an Anasarca. Lastly, how unproperly is the air said to be the outward refreshing spirit of this Animal, when it is ever in the very midst of it? And how rashly is the Flux and Reflux of the Sea assimilated to the pulse, when the pulse is from the heart, not the brain; but the flux and reflux of the Sea from the Moon not the Sun, which they that be more discreetly phantasticall then your self, do call Cor Mundi. Wherefore, Anthroposophus! your phansies to sober men, will seem as vain and puerile, as those of idle children that imagine the fortuitous postures of spaul and snivell on plaster-walls, to bear the form of mens or dogs faces, or of Lyons, and what not?

And yet see the supine stupidity and senslesnesse of this mans judgement, that he triumphs so in this figment of his as so rare and excellent a truth, that Aristotles Philosophy must be groundlesse superstition and Popery in respect of it, this the primevall truth of the creation; when as it is a thousand times more froth, then His is vomit. My friend Anthroposophus! is this to appear for the truth (as you professe) in a day of necessity? Certainly she'll be well holpe at a dead lift, if she find no better champions then your self.

Verily Philalethes, if you be no better in your Book then in your Preface to the Reader, you have abused Moses his Text beyond measure. For your Principles will have neither heaven nor earth in them, head nor foot, reason nor sense. They will be things extra intellectum, and extra sensum, meer vagrant imaginations seated in your own subsultorious & skip-jack phansie onely. But what they are we shall now begin to examine, according to the number of pages.

Anthroposophia Theomagica. SECT. II.

1. Mastix makes himself merry with Eugenius his rash assertion, that all Souls at their entrance into the body have an explicite knowledge of things. 22. And that after a whole Springs experience he had found out those two known principles of Aristotle, Matter, and Privation. His absurd hope of seeing Substances. 3. The vanity of Devotion without purification of the mind. That Aristotle agrees with Moses in acknowledging the World to be framed by a knowing Principle, 4. Life alwayes accompanied with a naturall warmth. 5. Eugenius his fond mistake, as if either the Divine Light or Ideas could be kept out any space of time from shining in the opakest matter. 6. The little fruit of that rarity of Doctour Marci in making the figure of a Plant suddenly rise up in a glasse. 7. Eugenius his naturall Idea (which he affirms to be a subtile invisible fire) no Idea at all. 8. His vain boasting of himself as if he were more knowing amd communicative then any that has wrote before him. 9. His tearming the Darknesse or the first Matter the fuliginous spawn of Nature. 10. His inconstancy in creating and uncreating this Matter. 11. The horrible confused Qualme he fancies in the moist Matter at the creation of the world, Heat and Siceitie the two active qualities in the Principle of Light assisting by their Mid-wifry.

Observation 1. Pag. 2. l. 11.

So have all souls before their entrance, &c. But hear you me Mr. Anthroposophus! are you in good earnest that all Souls before their entrance into the body have an explicite methodicall knowledge? and would you venture to lose your wit so much by imprisoning your self in so dark a dungeon, as to be able to write no better sense in your Preface to the Reader? But I'll excuse him, it may be he was riding before his entrance into the body on some Theomagicall jade or other, that stumbled and flung him into a mysticall quagmire against his will, where he was so soused and doused and bedaubed and dirtyed, face and eyes and all, that he could never, since the midwife raked him out all wet and dropping like a drown'd mouse, once see clearly what was sense and what non-sense to this very day. Wherefore we will set the saddle on the right Horse; and his Theomagick Nag shall bear the blame of the miscarriage.

Observation 2. Pag. 3.

Lin. 3. I took to task the fruits of one Spring, &c. Here Anthroposophus is turned Herbalist for one whole Spring, damned to the grasse, and fields like Nebuchadnezzar when he went on all four among the Beasts. But see how slow this Snail amongst the herbs is, in finding out the truth; when he confesses it was the work of one whole Spring to find out, That the Earth or seeds of flowers are nothing like the flowers. There's not any old Garden-weeder in all London, but without a pair of spectacles will discover that in four minutes, which he has been a full fourth part of a year about. But certainly, he intends a great deal of pomp and ceremony, that will not take up such a Conclusion as this, (viz. That things that are produced in Nature, are out of something in Nature which is not like the things produced) but upon the full experience and meditation of one entire Spring. And now after this whole Springs meditation and experience, he is forced to turn about to him whom he so disdainfully flies, and confesse two of the three principles of the Aristotelean Physicks. viz. Mat[•]er and Privation, that homo is ex non homine, arbor ex non arbore, &c. But this Matter, he sayes, (and it is the wisest word he has spoken yet) he knows not what it is. But presently blots his credit again with a new piece of folly, intimating he will finde it out by experience. Which is as good sense as if he should say, he would see it when his eyes are out. For it is alike easie to see visibles without eyes, as to see invisibles with eyes. But he flies off hence, and is in quest after a Substance, which he smels out like a nosegay in Natures bosome; which Substance he hopes to see by Art. Why! Eugenius, are you so sharp sighted that you can see Substances? A kind of Philosophick Hog, he can see the wind too I warrant you. But how can you hope to see that Substance, when Nature onely exposes it, as you say, to her own vitall celestiall breath? And tell what this Breath is, and do not amaze us with strange words, or else keep your breath to your self to cool your pottage.

Observation 3. Pag. 4.

Here a fit of devotion has taken him, and I am neither so irreligious nor uncivill as to interrupt him. But now Sir you have done, I hope it will not be any offence to addresse my discourse to you again. And it will not be unseasonable to tell you, that Truth is not to be had of God Almighty for an old song, no nor yet for a new one. And that no man is to measure his wisdome by his devotion, but by his humility and purity of mind and unprejudicate reason; nor that any man is wiser by making others seem more contemptibly foolish, as your juvenility has thought good to deal with poor Aristotle & his Orthodox Disciples all this time. Nay, and that you may not take Sanctuary at Moses his Text, let me also tell you, that before you prove any thing thence, you ought first to make good, that Scripture is intended for naturall Philosophy as well as a divine life. But we need not arm our selves so well yet; for from the fourth page to the eight page nothing is said, but that God from a knowing Principle made the World. Which Aristotle also seems to assert, while he is so frequent in telling the ends of naturall things, which could not be sense, unlesse he supposed that Nature was guided by a knowing Principle, which is to acknowledge a God after the best manner. And that subtil Philosopher Iulius Scaliger uses no contemptible arguments to prove, that Aristotles Philosophy furnisheth us also with the knowledge of a Trinity in God, so that Anthroposophus is very unkind and uncivill to so good a Master.

Observation 4. Pages 8. and 9.

What an Aristotelean would dispatch in a word or two, viz. that Life is alwayes accompanied with a naturall warmth, he is mysteriously fumbling out and drayling on to the length of almost two whole pages.

Observation 5. Pag. 9.

Lin. 10. The divine light pierced the bosome of the matter, &c. This compared with what is at the bottome of the fourth page, we see that this rare philosopher tells us, that the Matter is an horrible empty darknesse. And me thinks his description is an hideous empty fancie, and conveys not so much to the understanding as Aristotles description of the Matter, which he would describe to be, The first subject out of which every thing is. This latter is more clean and sober, the other more slabby and fantasticall. And to call it Primitive waters is but yet metaphors and poetry: For you do not mean waters such as we wash our hands in. But they must be waters and dark, that you may bring in the conceit of the light shining in them, that like as in rivers and pools the images of trees & birds, and clouds and stars, and what not, may be seen in them. And this must help us to conceive, that upon the breaking through of the light, the divine Idea's shone in the waters, and that the holy Spirit, not being able to see till then, by looking then upon those images, framed the matter into form. But I pray you tell me, Mr. Anthroposophus! that would be so wise as if you stood by while God made the World, doe not you think that God can now see in the dark, or behold his own Idea's in the depth of the Earth? You'l say you doe not mean this Natural light but a divine light. If so, was ever the matter so st[•]ff and clammy dark, as to be able to keep it out? So that the divine Idea's shone in the Water so soon as God was, and the Spiritus Opifex could see to begin his work ab omni retro aeternitate. And it could never be dark in your blind sense. Is it not so Anthroposophus?

Observation 6.

Lin. 25. Si plantam quasi momento nas[•]i, &c. If Anthroposophus had such a device as this in a glasse, what a fine gew-gaw would it be for the lad? What fine sport would he make with his companions? He would make them believe then that he was a Conjurer indeed. But what other use there would be of it, Anthroposophus! truly I do not know. For it would not state one controversie in Philosophy more then what may be done without it. For whether there be any such things as rationes seminales, or whether these forms visible arise from heat, which is motion, and the conspiracy of fitted particles, is as well and safely determined from your experiments of one spring, as from this strange whim-wham in a glasse. But weak stomachs and weak wits long most after rarities.

Observation 7. Pag. 10.

Lin. 4. Two-fold Idea, divine, natural, &c. Anthroposophus!

Your natural Idea, is but an idea of your own brain. For it is no more an idea then a sheath is a knife, or the spittle that wets the seal is the seal[•] or the grease the saw, or the water the Grindle-stone. But you must strike betwixt this and the divine Id[•]a, or else you will misse of your natural one. And so will be forced to do that of penury, which he did of choise and for brevity sake, divide your Text into one part. But your quotation of Moses here neer the bottom of the page, is either nothing to your natural Idea, or if you mean it of the divine, is no new notion, but nimmed out of Philo the Iew. And yet in the beginning of the following page you magnify your self, as one that concerning this primitive supernatural part of the Creation as you call it, though you have not said so much as you can say by far, (as being a Nip-crust or Niggard of your precious speculations) yet you have produced not a little new.

Observation 8. Pag. 11.

Lin. 5. Some Authors, &c. And the reason why the world is beholding to this Gentleman more then to any for new discoveries of mighty truths, is, that whereas some Authors have not searched so deeply into the Center of Nature, and others not willing to publish such spiritual mysteries, this new Writer is the onely man, that is both deeply seen into the Center of Nature, and as willing also to publish these spiritual mysteries. So that he goes beyond them all. O brave Anthroposophus! What a fine man would you fain appear to the World.

In the residue of this page, Anthroposophus his phansie is pudled so and jumbled in the Limbus or

Huddle of the Matter, that he cannot distinguish betwixt God and the Creature; For he knows not whether the Chaos be created or uncreated. How much wiser are you now then Aristotle, Mr. Eugenius! that made the world Eternal? If you can admit this; by the rule of proportion you might swallow the greatest Gudgeon in Aristotle without kecking or straining.

Observation 9. Pag. 12.

Lin. 11. Fuliginous spawn of Nature. A rare expression! This Magicician has turned Nature into a Fish by his Art. Surely such dreams float in his swimmering Brains as in the Prophets, who tells us so Authentick stories of his delicious Albebut.

Observation 10.

Lin. 12. The created Matter. Before the Matter was in an hazard of not being created, but of being of it self eternal. Certainly Eugenius! you abound with leasure that can thus create and uncreate, doe and undoe because the day is long enough.

Observation 11.

Lin. 21. A horrible confused qualm, &c. Here Nature like a child-bearing woman has a qualm comes over her stomach, and Eugenius like a man-midwife stands by very officiously to see what will become of it. Let her alone, Eugenius! it is but a qualm, some cold raw rhewme. Margret will escape wel[•] enough. Especially if her two Handmaids Heat and

                       Siccity, which you mention, do but help with their Aquavitae bottles. What a rare mode or way of Creation has Eugenius set out? Certainly it cannot but satisfie any unreasonable man, if there be any men without reason; and I begin to suspect there is, for Eugenius his sake, such as feed as savourly on the pure milk of fansie, as the Philosophers Asse on Sowthistles.

SECT. III.

12. He asserts, that there was a vast portion of light in the Extract from the Chaos which surrounded the whole earth. 13. He compares Ptolemees Heavens to a rumbling confused Labyrinth. 14. He calls the Firmament Cribrum Naturae. 15. Affirmes that the light before the fourth day equally possest the whole creation. 16. That the Night peeps out like a baffled Giant when the Sun is down. 17. That the shadow of the Earth is Natures black bagg. 18. He prays to be delivered from the dark Tincture which at last by the Protochymist shall be expeld beyond the Creation. 19. He allows onely two Elements, Earth and Water. [•]0. He speakes of Water and Fire (which is Apuleius his Psyche and Cupid) of their bedding together. 21. Cites an obscure Aphorisme out of Sendivow. 22. Affirmes that the Air is the Magicians ba[•]k doore. 23. And our animal Oyl the fuell of the vital and sensual fire in us.

Observation 12. Pag. 13.

THis page is spent in extracting from the Chaos[•], a thin spiritual celestial substance to make the

                       Caelum Empyreum of, and the Body of Angels, and by the by, to be in stead of a Sun for the first day. But then in the second Extraction was extracted the agill air filling all betwixt the Masse and the Coelum Empyreum. But here I have so hedged you in Mr. Anthroposophus, that you will hardly extricate your self in this question. The Empyreal substance encompassing all[•] how could there be Morning aud Evening till the fourth day? for the mass was alike illuminated round about at once. And for your interstellar water you do but fancy it implyed in Moses text, & can never prove that he drives at any thing higher in the letter thereof, than those hanging bottles of water, the clouds.

Observation 13. Pag. 14.

Lin. 12. A rumbling confused Labyrinth. 'Tis only Erratum Typographicum. I suppose you mean, a rumbling Wheel-barrow; in allusion to your Wheel-work and Epicycles aforementioned. But why small diminutive Epicycles? Eugenius! you are so profound a Magician, that you are no Astronomer at all. The bignesse of them is as strong a presumption against them as any thing: they are too big to be true.

Observation 14.

Lin. 26. This is Cribrum Naturae.
[non-Latin text], I warrant you. The very sive that Iupiter himself pisses through, as Aristophanes sports it in his Comedies.

Observation 15. Pag. 15.

Lin. 20. Equally possest the whole Creature. Therefore again I ask thee, O Eugenius! how could there be Evening and Morning, the light being all over equally dispersed?

Observation 16.

Lin. 29. Like a baffled Gyant. Poetical Eugenius! Is this to [•]ay the sober and sound principles of Truth and Philosophy?

Observation 17. Pag. 16.

Lin. 1. A Black Bag. I tell thee Eugenius! Thy phansie is snapt in this female Black-bag, as an unwary Retiarius in a Net. Do's Madam Nature wear her Black-bag in her middle parts? (for the Earth is the Center of the World) or on her head as other matrons doe? That Philalethes may seem a great and profound Student indeed, he will not take notice whether a black-bag be furniture for Ladies heads or their haunches: Well! let him injoy the glory of his affected rusticity and ignorance.

Observation 18.

Lin. 5. Good Lord deliver us. How the man is frighted into devotion by the smut and griminesse of his own imagination.

Observation 19.

Lin. 15. Earth and water, &c. Concurrunt element a ut Materia, ergo duo sufficiunt, says Cardan.
[•]Tis no new-sprung truth, if true, Mr. Eugenius! But seeing that AEthereal vigour and celestial heat with the substance thereof, (For coelum pervadit omnia) is in all things, and the air excluded from few or no living Creatures, if we would severely tug with you, Mr. Anthroposophus! you will endanger the taking of the foil.

Observation 20. Pag. 18.

Lin. 22. Both in the same bed. Why did you ever sneak in Eugenius, and take them, [non-Latin text], in the very act? [non-Latin text], as the Lawyers speak? This is but poeticall pomp in prose. And Ovid Philosophizes better in verse, where speaking of heat and moisture, he expresses himself apertly and significantly.

Observation 21.

Lin. 27. Spiritus aquae invisibilis congelatus melior est quàm terra Vniversa. Now as you are Philalethes, tell me truly if you understand any determinate and usefull sense of this saying. If you do, why do you not explain it? if you do not, for ought you know, it may be onely a charm to fox fishes. And I pray you, Philalethes! make triall of the experiment.

Observation 22. Pag. 19.

Lin. 29. It is the Magicians Back-doore. Here I cannot but take notice at the great affectation of Philalethes to appear to be deeply seen in Magick. But I suppose if he were well searched, he would be found no Witch, nor all his Back-door of air worth the winde of an ordinary mans back-doore.

Observation 23. Pag. 20.

Lin. 2. The air is our Animal oil, the fuell of the vitall. Now Eugenius! you are so good natured as to give Aristotle one of his two elements again, that you wrested from him. If this be our animall oil, and fuell of the vitall, it is plain our animall and vitall spirits are from the air, and that the air is one element amongst the rest. And your moist silent Fire that passes through all things, must be a principle of all things, and may be well attempered heat to your forenamed oil. So that Aristotle and you that before seemed as disagreeing as fire and water, now in a love-fit again embrace as close as your Apulejus his Psyche and Cupid. But why will you be thus humorous Mr. Eugenius! and be thus off and on to the trouble of others and your self?

SECT. IV.

24. Eugenius having finished his generall exposition of the World, Mastix gives an account of it, shows the contradiction in it, discovers the vanity of drawing the letter of the Scripture to a rigid Philosophicall meaning. 25. Eugenius his ill manner of laying down the Fundamentalls of Sciences, 26. His celestiall Earth, Magnet, or Jacobs Ladder. 27. His little Suns and Moones in every Compound of Nature that are Mimulae majoris animalis, and wantonly imitate the two great Luminaries of the World. 28. His aenigmaticall Receit of the Medicine or Philosophers stone. 29. His fixing of the Earth into a pure Diaphanous Substance. 30. His praetension of explaining the Nature of Man. 31. His censure of all that know not the earth Adam was made out of (which is the Philosophicall Medicine) as Quacks and Pis-pot Doctours. 32. His two portions the Soul consists of, Ruach and Nephesh 33. And how the Angels scorning to [•]t[•]end Adam according as they were commanded, contrived to supplant him.

Observation 24. Pag. 21. l.9.

PErformed an exposition of the World. An excellent performance! Which if a man take[•] a narrow view of he will finde to amount to no more then this, That God made a dark Masse of Matter, out of which he extracted, (Chymist-like) first an Empyreall body, [•]hen an Aereall, &c. Which is a very lank satisfaction to the noble reason of man. Nay, Anthroposophus! I believe you have spoke such stuff that will amount to little better then a contradiction [•]o free reason. For you make as if the Masse did contain in a far l[•]sse compasse above all measure, all that was after extracted. Wherefore there was, (for these are all b[•]dies) either a penetration of dimensions then, or else a vacuum now: & the ascending particles of the Masse lie some distance one from another. Besides I observe that in you, that I do in all others, that fantastically and superstitiously force Philosophy out of the sacred Writ (which is intended certainly for better purposes). For as Ovid in his Metamorphoses,

after a long pursuit of a Fabulous story, at last descends to something in Nature and common use, (as that of Daphne turned into a Lawrell, which tree is in Nature and according to the accustomary conceit of the Heathens was holy to Apollo) so these running a Wild-Goose chase of Melancholy imaginations and fancies, think it evidence enough for what they have said, to have the thing but named in some Text of Scripture. Nay even those that are so confident they are inspired, and live of nothing but the free breathings of the Divine Spirit; if you observe them, it is with them as with the Lark, that is so high in the air, that we may better hear her then see her, as if she were an inhabitant of that Region onely and had no allyance to the Earth, yet at last you shall see her come down and pi[•]k on the ground as other birds. So these pretended inspired men though they flie high, and seem to feed of nothing but free truth, as they draw it from Gods own breathing; yet they took their ground first from the Text, though they ran a deal of fancyfull division upon it; and if a man watch them, he shall finde them [•]all flat upon the Text again, and be but as other Mortals are for all their free praetensions and extraordinary assistances. But let us leave these Theosophists (as they love to be called) to themselves, and trace on the steps of our Anthro posophus!

Observation 25. Pag. 22.

He exhorts us in the foregoing page to be curious & diligent in this subsequent part of his discourse, as being now about to deliver the Fundamentals of Science. But Anthroposophus! you are so deeply Magicall that you have conjured your self down, below the wit of an ordinary man. The Fundamentals of Science should be certain, plain, reall and perspicuous to reason; not muddy and imaginary as all your discourse is from this to your 28 page. For in this present page & the former, setting aside your superstitious affectation of Trinities & Triplicities, which teach a man nothing but that you are a very fantasticall and bold man, and lift at that which is too heavy for you; you do nothing but scold very cholerickly at the Colliers and Kitchen-maids, and like a dog return again to the Vomit, I mean that vomit you cast a while ago on Aristotle. Is that so elegant an expression that you must use it twice in so little a space? where is your manners Anthroposophus!

Observation 26. Pag. 23.

Lin. 14. and 24. The Magnet, the Mystery of Union, Not one of ten thousand knows the substance or the use of this Nature. Yet you tell it us in this page, that it will attract all things Physicall or Metaphysicall, at what distance soever. But you are a man of ten thousand, Anthroposophus! and have the Mystery, questionlesse, of this Magnet. Whence I conclude you King or Prince of the Gypsies, as being able at the farthest distance to attract metall out of mens purses. But take heed that you be not discovered, lest this Iacobs Ladder raise you up with your fellow Pick-pockets to Heaven in a string.

Observation 27. Pag. 24.

This page is filled with like Gypsie gibberish, as also the 25th. yet he pretends to lend us a little light from the Sun and Moon. Which he calls the great Luminaries and Conservatours of the great World in generall. How great, Anthroposophus! do you think would the Moon appear if your Magick could remove you but as far as Saturn from her? will she not appear as little as nothing? Besides, if Eugenius ever tooted through a Galileo's Tube, he might discover four Moons about Iupiter, which will all prove competitours with our Moon for the Conservatour-ship of the Universe. But though Eugenius admits of but one great broad-faced Sun and Moon, yet he acknowledgeth many Mimulae or Monky-faced Suns and Moons, which must be the Conservatriculae of the many Microcosmes in the great World. Certainly Anthroposophus! the speculum of your understanding is cracked, and every fragment gives a severall reflexion, and hence is this innumerable multitude of these little diminutive Suns and Moons. But having passed through much canting language, at the bottome of the page we at last stumble on the Philosophers Stone, which he intends I suppose to fling at Aristotle and brain the Stagirite at one throw.

Observation 28.

Lin. ult. A true Receipt of the Medicine, R. Limi coelestis partes, &c. Come out Tom-Fool from behinde the hangings, that peaks out with your Devils head and horns, and put off your vizard, and be aper[•] and intelligible, or else why do you pretend to lay the Fundamentalls of Science, and crave our diligence and attention to a non-significant noise and bu[•]ze? Unlesse you will be understood; it may as well, for ought any bodie knows, be a plaister for a gauld horses back, or a Medicine for a Mad-dog, as a receipt of the Philosophers Stone.

Observation 29. Pag. 27.

In this page Magicus prophesies of a vitrification of the Earth, and turning of it into a pure diaphanous substance. To what end? Magicus! That the Saints and Angels at each pole of the Earth may play at Boe-peep with one another through this crystallized Globe? Magicus has rare imaginations in his noddle.

Observation 30. Pag. 28.

At the end of this page Magicus begins to take to task the explication of mans nature. But Magicus you must first learn better to know your self, before you attempt to explain the knowledge of man to others.

Observation 31. Pag. 29.

Lin. 10. The Philosophicall Medicine. This is the Philosophers stone. And they that are ignorant in this point are but Quacks and Pispot Doctours. Ho! Dr. H. Dr. P. Dr. R. Dr. T. and as many Doctours more as will stand betwixt London and Oxenford, if you have not a sleight of Art to Metamorphize your selves into Triorchises, and have one stone more then Nature hath bestowed upon you (which is forsooth the Philosophers Stone) have amongst you blind Harpers, Magicus will not stick to teem Urinals on your heads, and crown you all, one after another, with the Pispot, and honour you with the Title of Quack-salvers. What? Magicus! Is it not sufficient that you have no sense nor wit, but you will have no good manners neither?

Observation 32. Pag. 30.

This thirtieth page teaches that the Soul of man consists of two parts, Ruach and Nephesh, one Masculine and the other Feminine. And Anthroposophus is so tickled with the Application of the conceit unto Marriage, which he very feelingly and savourly pursues, that he has not the patience to stay to tell us how these two differ, he being taken up so with that powerfull charm and thence accrewing Faculty of Crescite & Multiplicamini.

Observation 33. Pag. 31.

This page has the Legend that the Alcoran has concerning the envy of the Angels. But all goes down alike with him, as if every thing printed were Gospel. In so much that I am perswaded that he doubts not but that every syllable of his own Book is true, now it has passed the P[•]esse.

SECT. V.

34. Eugenius broaches an old truth for a new doctrine. 35. His errour that the sensitive part in man is a portion of Anima Mundi. 36. His rash rejection of Peripateticall forms. 37. His odde conceit of blind mens seeing in their sleep. 38. And of the flowers of Hearbs, framed like eyes, having a more subtile perception of heat and cold then other parts of them have. 39. His distinguishing the Rationall or Angelicall spirit in man from the Sensitive. 40. Mastix commends Eugenius for his generous discourse of the excellency of the Soul. 41. Rebukes him for his enmity with the Peripateticks and School-Divines, and for his rash swearing and protesting solemnly before God that he wrote onely out of Zeal to the truth of his Creatour. 42. Check[•] his bold entitling of his own writings to the Sacrosanctity of Mysteries. 43. Taxes his vain idolizing of Ag[•]ippa. 44. Shows him the fruitlesse effects of Enthusiastick Poetry without the true knowledge of things. 45. Approves of severall collections of his concerning God and the Soul, but disallows of his rash censure of Aristotles Philosophy, challenging him to show any solution of Philosophick controversies by his Chymicall experiments. 46. Sports himself with his solicitude of what acceptance his writings will have in the world. 47. As also with his modest pride in disclaiming all affectation of Rhetorick. 48. And his lanck excuse in that he wrote in the dayes of his mourning for the death of his brother. 49. His ridiculous Tergiversation in not submitting his writings to the censure of any but God alone.

Observation 34. Pag. 32.

THis page ridiculously places Peter Ramus amongst the Schoolmen against all Logick and Method. And at the last line thereof bids us arrigere aures, and tells he will convey some truth never heretofore discovered, viz. That the Sensitive gust in a man is the forbidden fruit; with the rest of the circumstances thereof. Which Theory is so farre from being new, that it is above a thousand years old. It is in Origen and every where in the Christian Platonists.

Observation 35. Pag. 38.

Lin. 27. It is part of Anima Mundi. Why! is Anima Mundi (which, you say, in men and beasts can see, feel, tast and smell) a thing divisible into parts and parcells? Take heed of that Anthroposophus! lest you crumble your own soul into Atoms; indeed make no soul, but all body.

Observation 36. Pag. 39.

Lin. 22. Blind Peripateticall forms. What impudence is this O Magicus! to call them so unlesse you make your Anima Mundi more intelligible? This is but to rail at pleasure, not to teach or confute.

Observation 37. Pag. 40.

Lin. 2. As it is plain in dreams. Blind men then see in their sleep it seems, which is more then they can do when they are awake. Are you in jest Eugenius! or in good earnest? If you be, I shall suspect you having a faculty to see when you are asleep, that you have another trick too, that is, to dream when you are awake. Which you practised I conceive very much in the comp[•]lement of this book, there being more dreams then truth by farre in it.

Observation 38.

Lin. 11. Represent the eyes. How fanciful and poeticall are you Mr. Magicus! I suppose you allude to the herb Euphrasia or Eyebright: Which yet sees or feels as little light or heat of the Sun, as your soul do's of reason or humanity.

Observation 39.

Lin. 27. Angelicall or rationall spirit. Do's not this see and hear too in man? If it do not, how can it judge of what is said or done? If it do's; then there are two hearing and seeing souls in a man. Which I will leave to Anthroposophus his own thoughts, to find out how likely that is to be true.

Observation 40. 46, 47, 48, 49. Pages.

Truly, Anthroposophus! these pages are of that nature, that though you are so unkind to Aristotle, as to acknowlege nothing good in him; yet I am not so inveterate a revengefull assertor of him, but I will allow you your lucida intervalla. What you have delivered in these pages concerning the Soul of man, bating a few Hyperboles, might become a man of a more settled brain than Anthroposophus. But while you oppose so impetuously what may with reason be admitted, and propound so magisterially what is not sense, I must tell you Anthroposophus! that you betray to scorn and derision even those things that are sober in the way that you affect, and hazard the soiling of the highest and most delicate truths, by your rude and unskilfull handling of them: And now the good breath, that guided you for these four pages together, is spent, you begin to rave again after the old manner, and call Galen Antichrist in the fiftieth page;

Observation 41. Pag. 50.

And quarrel again with the Peripateticks, and provoke the School-divines. And then you fancie that you have so swinged them, that in revenge they'l all fall upon you at once, and so twerilug you: when as they good men feel not your strokes, and find themselves something else to do, then to refute such crazy Discourses as this. It is I onely, it is I, your brother Philalethes, that am moved with pi[•]ie towards you[•] and would, if I could, by carefully correcting you in your distempers, bring you to a sober mind, and set you in your right senses again. And I beseech you brother Philalethes
[•] forbear this swearing: An honest mans word is as good as his Oath. No body will believe you more for swearing, then he would without it, but think you more melancholick and distracted.

Observation 42.

Lin. 21. Whiles they contemn mysteries, &c. In this heat all that Philalethes writes must be termed Holy mysteries. His project certainly is, now neither

Episcopacie nor Presbyterie can be setled, to get his book established jure divino. A crafty colt! Ha, ha, he! Philalethes, Are you there with your Bears?

Observation 43.

Lin. 29. Next to God I owe all I have to Agrippa. What? more then to the Prophets, and Apostles, Anthroposophus? The businesse is, for your fame-sake, you have more desire to be thought a Conjurer then a Christian.

Observation 44. Pag. 53, 54.

Great glorious penman! A piping hot paper of verse[•]
[•]ndeed, Anthroposophus! But say truly! What can you do in or out of this heat more then other men? Can you cure the sick? Rule and counsell States and Kingdomes more prudently for the common good? Can you find bread for the Poor? Give a rationall account of the Phoenomena of Nature, more now then at another time? or more then other men can do? Can you tell me the nature of Light? the causes of the Rainbow? what makes the flux and reflux of the Sea? the operations of the Loadstone, and such like? Can you tell us in a rationall, dependent, and coherent way the nature of such things as these, or foretell to us what will be hereafter, as certainly and evidently as the Prophets of old? But if there be neither the evidence of Reason, nor the testimony of notable effect, you can give us; you must give me leave Anthroposophus! to conjecture; That all this is but a frisk and dance of your agitated spirits, and firinesse of your fancie, of which you will find no fruit, but a palsied, unsteddy apprehension, and unsound judgement.

Observation 45. Pag. 55.

From this page to the 62. your Theomagicall Nag has been prettie sure-footed, Philalethes! And it is a good long lucidum intervallum you have ambled out. Nay and you have done very well and soberly in not plainly pretending any new thing there. For they are both old and well seasoned, if the Church be so pleased to esteem of them. But what you have toward the latter end of the 62 page, that is, a word of your self, and another o[•] the common Philosophie, has in it a spice of the old maladie, pride and con
[•]it[•]dnesse: as if you had now finished so famous a piece of work, as that all the world would stand amazed, and be inquisitive after you, asking who is this Philalethes, and what is he? Presbyterian or Independent? Sir, may it please you, He is neither Papist, though he bid fair enough for Purgatorie in his Exposition of St. Peter in the foregoing page; nor Sectarie, though he had rather style himself a Protestant then a Christian: but be he what he will be, he is so great in his own conceit, that though you have not the opportunitie to ask his judgment, yet he thinks it fit unasked to set himself on the seat of Judicature, and disgorge his sentence on our ordinary Philosophie. He means you may be sure the Aristotelean in use for so many hundred years in all the Universities of Europe. And he pronounces of it, that it is An inconsistent Hotch-potch of rash conclusions, built on meer imagination without the light of Experience. You must suppose he means Chymicall experiments,

for you see no small pretensions to that in all his Treatise. And this very Title page, the first of the book, has the priviledge to be first adorned with this magnificent term of Art, Protochymistry. But tell me, Mr. Alchymist! in all your skill and observation in your Experiments, if you have hit on any thing that will settle any considerable point controverted amongst Philosophers, which may not be done as effectually at lesse charges. Nay, whether you may not lose Nature sooner then find her by your industrious vexing of her, and make her appear something else then what she really is; Like men on the rack or overwatched witches, that are forced many times to confesse that which they were never guiltie of. But it being so unsatisfactorie to talk in generall, and of so tedious purpose to descend to particulars, I will break off this discourse. Onely let me tell you thus much Mr. Philalethes! that you are a very unnaturall son to your mother Oxenford, and to her sister Universitie; for if they were no wiser then you would make them, you would hazard them and all their children to be begg'd for fools: And there would be a sad consequent of that. But your zeal and heated melancholie considers no such things, Anthroposophus!

Observation 46. Pag. 65.

Lin. 3. I have now done, Reader! but how much to my own prejudice I cannot tell. Verily nothing at all Philalethes! For you have met with a friend that hath impartially set out to you your own follies and faults. And has distorted himself often into the deformities of your postures, that you may the better see your [•]elf in another, and so for [•]hame amend.

Observation 47.

Lin. 8. Paint and trim of Rhetorick. How modest are you grown Philalethes! Why? this affectation of humour and Rhetorick is the most conspicuous thing in your book. And shines as oriently, as false gold and silver lace on a linsie-woolsie coat.

Observation 48.

Lin. 22. Of a brothers death. Some young man certainly that killed himself by unmercifull studying of Aristotle. And Philalethes writ this book to revenge his Death.

Observation 49.

Lin. 18. I [•]xpose it not to the mercy of man, but to God. See, the man affects an absolute Tyranny in Philosophie. He'll be accountable to none but God. You no Papist Philalethes? Why! you would be a very Pope in Philosophie, if you would not have your Dictates subject to the canvase of mans reason.

Observations upon his Advertisement to the Reader.

THe first thing you require is, that he that attempts your Book, should make a plain and positive Exposition of all the passages. Why man? that is more assuredly then your self can do. For you are so weak and supine in many things that are intelligible, that I am confident you are worse in that which you have made lesse intelligible. For as Socrates reading an obscure Authour, when he found all things he understood very good, did charitably conclude, what he understood not was much better: so I finding in this obscure Treatise of yours, many things very ill, I also in charity will think you had the wit to conceal those things which are the worst; or, which will serve the turn, that you understand them not your self. But have an itching desire that some Reader skilfuller then your self, should tell you whether you have wrote sense or non-sense: Like the Countrey Clown, that desired his young Master to teach him to write, and being asked how he would be able to read his own writing, being as yet never acquainted so much as with the christ-crosse-row, made answer he would get some body else to read it for him. And so you Philalethes! though you can read your own writing, yet you desire to get some body else to understand it for you, or to interpret to you what you have writ.

Your second request is not much unlike the former, and too big a business for your self to doe, and therefore you beg it of another.

Your third request is to have your book handled after your own maner and method. Which is as ridiculous, as if you should request your enemy to smite softly, or to strike after such a fashion; & at such a part as you will appoint him. Can it be reasonable for you to expect from an Aristotelean (for you must think it would be they of all men that would flie about your ears first) when you have used their Master Aristotle, as they would not, to be used of them as you would[•] But notwithstanding Philalethes! you see I have bin fair with you, and, though provoked, I shall continue the same candour in my Observations on your following peece. But before I pass, I must take notice of your two admonitions to the ingenuous Reader, for I suppose you mean me, Philalethes! The first is, that I would not despise your endevours, because of your yeers, for they are but few. Why man! who knew that but your selfe, if you could have kept your own counsell? Your name is not at your book, much less your age. But indeed many things are so well managed of you, that if you had not told us so, we might have shrewdly suspected, you have scarcely reached the yeers of discretion. But you are so mightily taken with your own performance, that to increase admiration, and for the bringing in a phrase or sentence out of Proclus, you could not with-hold from telling us that you are but a young man, and so we easily believe it. But the more saucy Boy you to be so bold with Reverend Master Aristotle, that grandeval Patriarch in points of Philosophy. For the second admonition, it is little more then a noise or clatter of words, or if you will, a meer rattle for a boy to play with. And so I leave it in your hand to passe away the time, till I meet you againe in your Anima Magica Abscondita.

Upon the Preface to the READER.

NOw God defend! what will become of me! In good faith, Philalethes! I doe not know what may become of you in time, But for the present, me thinks, you are become a fool in a play, or a Jack-pudding at the dancing on the Ropes, a thing wholly set in a posture to make the people laugh. Phy! Phy! Philalethes! Doe these humorous and Mimical schemes of speech become so profound a Theomagician, as your self would seem to be? Do's this ridiculous levity become a man of your profession? You doe not a little disparage your self by these boyish humors, my good Philalethes!

For mine own part, I am neither so light-headed no[•] light-footed, as to dance the Morisco with you measure to measure, through this whole toy of yours to the Reader. I shall dispatch what I have to say at once. Your main drift here is to prove Agrippa's Dogs no Divels, and their Master no Papist, and consequently your selfe no unlawful Magician or Conjurer.

And truly if the assembly of Divines be no more suspicious of you then my self, I am abundantly satisfied, that you are rather a giddy fantastick then an able Conjurer, so that without any offence to me, you may take Wierus his office if you will, and for want of imployment, lead about Agrippa's beagles in a string. In the mean time I shall busie my selfe almost to as little purpose in the perusal of your Anima Magica Abscondita.

Upon Anima Magica Abscondita. SECT. I.

1. Eugenius his maimed citation of Aristotles definition of Nature. 2. His illogical exception against him for using of a general Notion in this definition, and a difference expressing onely what Nature does, not what she is. 3. His ridiculous exception against Magirus his definition of [non-Latin text] or forma, Quae absolvit, expolit, informat rem naturalem, ut per eam una ab altera distinguatur. 4. His barbarous translation of [non-Latin text]
   Consummatio or Finitatio, and a repetition of his former cavil. 5. He exhorts the Peripateticks to change their Abstractions into Extractions, that they may discerne the substantial formes themselves in the inward closet of Matter. 6. Tells us that the motions of the heavens are from an internal Principle, and that Intelligences are fabulous. 7. Reproaches the Scriblers concerning Mat[•]er and Forme, as writing nothing to their own credit, or profit of the Reader. 8. Informes us that the Anima mundi retained in the Matter and missing a vent organizeth bodies. 9. His misapplication of that Hemistichium of Virgil — Auraï simplicis ignem. The passive spirit the inmost vestment of the soul applying to Generation, and that the vital liquour or aethereal water attracts the passive spirit. 10. His chain of

Descent whereby the soule is caught in the Matter. 11. His declaring of the foregoing mystery makes him suspect that he has too publikely prostituted the secrets of Nature.

Observation 1.

ANd here Philalethes! in the very threshold you begin to worrey the poor Perepateticks more fiercely then any English mastive, and bark and scold into the air (that is, in general) more cursedly and bitterly then any Butter-quean; but at last in the first line of the second page, you begin to take to task some particular Documents of Aristotles. viz. The description of Nature, of Form, and of the Soul. Whereby we shall understand of what great judgement and perspicacity you are in other points of Philosophy. And first of the Definition of Nature, which you say is defined, Principium motus & quietis. A little thing serves your turn, Anthroposophus! is this the entire Definition of Nature, in Aristotle? But what you unskilfully take no notice of, I willingly wink at, and will deal with you onely about those things that you produce and oppose.

Observation 2. Pag. 3.

Lin. 19. Nature is a Principle. Here you cavil that Nature is said to be a Principle, because you cannot find out the thing defined by this general intimation. But here, Philalethes! you are a pitiful Logician, and know not so much in Logick as every Freshman in our University doth, viz. that that part of the Definition which is general do's not lead us directly home unto the thing defined, and lay our hand upon it; but it is the difference added that do's that. As if so be we should say onely that, Homo est animal, that assertion is so floating and hovering, that our mind can settle on nothing, which it may safely take for a man; for that general notion belongs to a slea, or a mite in a chees as well as to a man; but adding rationale, then it is determined and restrained to the nature of man. And your allegation against the difference here annexed in the definition of Nature, is as childish. For you only alleadge that it tels us what nature do's, not what it is. My dear Philalethes! Certainly thou hast got the knack of seeing further into a millstone then any mortal else. Thou hast discovered, as thou thinkest, Dame Nature stark naked, as Actaeon did Diana; but for thy rash fancy deservest a pair of Asses ears, as well as he did his Bucks-horns for his rash sight. Can any substantial form be known, otherwise then by what it can do or operate. Tell me any one substantial form that thou knowest any better way then this, & Phillida solus habeto, take Phillis to thy self, and her black-bag to boot. Thou art, good Anthroposophus! I perceive, a very unexperienced novice in the more narrow and serious search and contemplation of things.

Observation 3. Pag. 4.

Lin. 23. This is an expresse of the office and effect of formes, but not of their substance or essence. Why! Philalethes! as I said before, have you ever discovered the naked substance or Essence of any thing! Is colour, light, hardnesse, softnesse, &c. is any of these or of such like, essence & substance it selfe? if you be so great a Wizard, show some one substantial form in your Theomagical glasse. Poor Kitling! how dost thou dance and play with thine own shadow, and understandest nothing of the mystery of substance and truth!

Observation 4. Pag. 5.

Here in the third place you cavil at Aristotles Definition of the Soul, and by your slubbering and barbarous translating of the term [non-Latin text] smother the fitnesse of the sense. What more significant of the nature of a Soul, then what this term [non-Latin text] is compounded of? viz.
[non-Latin text], and [non-Latin text].

                          —Totamque inf[•]sa per artus
                          Mens agitat molem.

Or if we read the word as Cicero,
[non-Latin text], it wil be more significant, as being made up of [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text]. And that which do's inwardly pervade and penetrate, that which do's hold together, and yet move this way and that way, and lastly still moving possess and command an organical body, &c. what is this but a Soul, or what better Definition can be given of it then this? But here this peremptory opposer do's still inculcate the same cavil, that the naked substance or essence of the soul, is not set out by this, but its operations. But still out of the same ignorance, supposing that a substantial Form can be better known then by its proper operations. And this ignorance of his makes him so proud, that he does Fellow at every word, if not Sirrah, Prince Aristotle; because he has not done that which is impossible to doe, unbare to us the very substance of the Form. What an imperious boy is this! a wrangling child in Philosophy, that screams and cries after what is impossible, as much as peevish babes, after what is hurtful. Aud in this humorous straining and wrigling bemarres both his Mother and his Aunt, both the Universities at once, casting dirt and filth upon their education of youth, as if they taught nothing, because they cannot teach what is impossible to be learned.

Observation 5. Pag. 8.

Here Anthroposophus begins to be something earnest and rude with Nature, not content any longer to use his adulterous phansie, but to break open with his immodest hands her private closet, search her Cabinet, and pierce into her very Center. What rare extractions he will make thence, I leave to himselfe to enjoy. Sure I am, that if any skilful Cook, or Chymist, should take out Philalethes brains, and shred them as small as mincemeat, and tumble them never so much up and down with a trencher-fork, he would not discover by this diligent discussion any substantial Form of his brains, whereby they may be discovered from what lies in a Calfs head. Nay, if they were stewed betwixt two dishes, or distilled in an Alembek, neither would that extraction be any crystalline mirror to see the substantial form stark naked in, and discover the very substance of that spirit, that has hit upon so many unhappy hallucinations. But you are a youth of rare hopes, Anthroposophus!

Observation 6. Pag. 9.

Lin. 20. Where by the way I must tell you, &c. viz.

That the Heavens are not moved by Intelligences. Who cannot tell us that? But indeed you are forward to tell us any thing, that do's but seem to sound high, or make any show. There's no body now but would laugh to hear, that a particular Angell turns about every Orb, as so many dogs in wheels turn the spit at the fire. So that it seems far below such a grand Theomagician as you are, to tell us such incredible fopperies as these to be false.

Observation 17.

Lin. 10. For the Authours credit and benefit of the Reader. Good Philalethes! What credit do you expect from your scribling, though it be the onely thing you aim at in all your Book? when yet nothing of truth but this aim of yours is to be understood throughout all this writing.

Observation 8.

Lin. 15. This Anima retain'd in the Matter and missing a vent, &c. A similitude, I suppose, taken from the bung-hole of a barrell; or more compendiously from bottled bear; or it may be from the corking up close the urine of a bewitched party, and setting it to the fire. For Anthroposophus will not be lesse then a Magician in all things, nor seem lesse wise then or witch or devil. But me thinks, Anthroposophus! your expression of the nature of this Anima, that must do such fine feats in the world, by the efformation of things and organizing the matter into such usefull figuration and proportion in living creatures, had been as fitly and as much to your purpose expressed; if you had fancied her tied up like a pig in poke, that grunting and nudling to get out, drove the yielding bag out at this corner and that corner, and so gave it due order and disposition of parts. But, O thou man of mysteries! tell me I pray thee, how so so subtil a thing as this Anima is, can be either barrel'd up, or bottled up, or tied up in a bag, as a pig in a poke! when as the first materiall rudiments of life be so lax and so fluid, how can they possibly hopple or incarcerate so thin and agil a substance as a Soul? so that the union betwixt them is of some other nature, then what such grosse expressions can represent, and more Theomagicall then our Theomagician himself is aware of.

Observation 9. Pag. 11.

Here Anthroposophus tells us rare mysteries concerning the Soul, that it is a thing stitched and cobled up of two parts. viz. of aura tenuissima, and lux simplicissima. And for the gaining of credence to this patched conceit, he abuses the authority of that excellent Platonist and Poet Virgilius Maro, taking the fag end of three verses which all tend to one drift, but nothing at all to his purpose. AEneid. 6.

This is not spoken of the Soul it self, but of the AEthereall Vehicle of the Soul, and so is nothing to your purpose Mr. Philalethes! You tell us also in this page in what shirts or sheets the Souls wrap themselves when they apply to generation, (as your phrase is) as if you were Groom of their bed-chamber, if not their Pa[•]der. You tell us also of a radicall vitall liquor that is of like proportion and complexion with the superiour interstellar waters, which is as learnedly spoken, as if you should compare the Sack at the Globe-Tavern, with certain supernall Wine-bottles hung round Orions girdle: Which no man were able to smell out, unlesse his nose were as Atlantick as your rauming and reaching fancy. And yet no man that has not lost his reason, but will think this as grave a truth in Philosophie as your interstellar waters. But Interstellar, indeed, is a prettie word and sounds well, and it is pitie but there were some fine Philosophick notion or other dld belong to it. But now, Philalethes! if I would tyrannize over you as you do over Aristotle, for the manner of your declaring the nature of the Soul, where you pretend to shew us the very naked essence of it, and first principles whereof it doth consist, you have laid your self more bare to my lash, then you endeavoured to lay bare the Soul to our view: for you do plainly insinuate to us, That either the Soul is Light, or else a thin Air, or that it is like to them. If onely like these bodies of Light and Air, how pitifully do you set out the nature of the Soul, when you tell us the principles of it onely in a dry metaphor? Is not the nature of the Soul far better known from the proper operations thereof (as Aristotle has defined it) then from this fantasticall metaphoricall way? But if you will say that the Soul is properly Light or Air, then be they never so thin, or never so simple (unlesse you will again use a metaphor) the Soul must be a Body. And how any corporeall Substance thick or thin, fluid or dry, can be able to think, to reason, to fancy, &c. nay to form matter into such cunning and wise frames and contrivancies as are seen in the bodies of living Creatures, no man of lesse ignorance and confidence then your self will dare to endeavour to explain, or hold any way probable.

Observation 10. Pag. 12.

In this page you are curiously imployed in making of a Chain of Light and Matter, surely more subtill and more uselesse then that that held the Flea prisoner in the Mechanicks hand. But this is to hold the Anima, the passive Spirit and celestiall Water together. Our Theomagician here grows as imperious as wrathfull Xerxes. Will you also fetter the Hellespont Philalethes? and binde the winde and waters in chains? Buc let's consider now the link of this miraculous chain of his.

This is your chain, Philalethes! Now let's see what Apish tricks you'll play with this your chain. The three portions of light must be brought down by the two, the two (if not indeed five, the two and three being now joyn'd) brought down by one, and so the whole chain drops into the water. But would any Ape in a chain if he could speak, utter so much incredible and improbable stuff, with so much munky and mysterious ceremony? His very chain would check his both thoughts and tongue. For is it not farre more reasonable that three links of a chain should sway down two, and two or five one, then that one should sway two or five, or two three? Or do we find when we fling up a clod of earth, that the whole ball of the Earth leaps up after that clod, or the clod rather returns back to the Earth, the greater ever attracting the lesse, if you will stand to magneticall Attraction. But truly Philalethes! I think you do not know what to stand to, or how to stand at all; you are so giddy and intoxicated with the steam and heat of your disturbed fancie and vain minde.

Observation 11. Pag. 13.

Lin. 8. But me thinks Nature complains of a prostitution, &c. Did not I tell you so before, that Philalethes was a pander? and now he is convinced in his own conscience and confesses the crime, and his eares ring with the clamours and complaints of Madam Nature, whom he has so lewdly prostituted. Sad Melancholist! thou art affrighted into the confession of crimes that thou art not onely not guilty of, but canst not be guilty of if thou wouldst. Is there never a one of our Citie Divines at leasure to comfort him and compose him? I tell thee, Madam Nature is a far more chast and discreet Lady, then to lie obnoxious to thy prostitutions. These are nothing but some unchast dreams of thy prurient and polluted fancie. I dare quit thee of this fact, Philalethes! I warrant thee, Thou hast not laid Madam Nature so naked as thou supposest, onely thou hast, I am afraid, dream'd uncleanly, and so hast polluted so many sheets of paper with thy Nocturnall Conundrums, which have neither life, sense, nor shape, head nor foot, that I can find in them.

SECT. II.

12. That Spiders and other brute creatures have knowledge in them from the first Intellect. 13. That the Seminall Forms of things are knowing and discerning Spirits. 14. That the World is from God, and all true wisdome: which is to be found by experiments, not in Aristotles writings. 15. Because of the abuse of Logick he takes up the Letan[•]e of St. Augustine. 16. His three Magicall Principles; viz. The first created Unity; the Binarius or this Unity defiled with Matter; the Ternarius or this Binarius refined by Art. 17. That this Ternarius (which he calls the Magicians Fire, Mercurius Philosophorum, Microcosmos, and Adam) is the Magicall maze where Students lose themselves; And that this Magicall fire moves in shades and Tyffanies here below, above in white etheriall vestures. 18. His Periphrasis of Agrippa (after a long citation out of him) This is he with the black Spaniel, &c. 19. His self-condemnation for going counter to all the World in making use of Scripture for Physiologie. 20 The Mosaicall Heaven and Earth are Mercury and Sulphur. Uxor Solis a certain principle in every Starre and in the whole world. The coition of these two, their Ejection of seed, with many such lascivious M[•]taphors. 21. Light a certain Principle that applied to any body whatsoever perfects it in suo genere, and that this light is onely multipliable.

Observation 12. Pag. 14.

HEre Philalethes is taken like a Fly in a Spiders Web. He is altogether for subtilties. But spins but a thick thred from them, such as any Rusticks hand would draw out as well as his own, viz. That Spiders have some light of knowledge in them. Who knows not that Philalethes? But in the fifteenth page

Observation 13. Pag. 15.

He is so lavish of what he has so little of himself, that he bestows it on every plastick materiall Form; and not a Rose can grow in Nature but some seeing and knowing Hyliard with his invisible pencill must draw it, and thus by his meer rash dictate do's he think he has dash'd out that long and rationall dogma in Philosophy of the particular [non-Latin text] or rationes seminales. Whose fondnesse in this groundlesse assertion it were easie to confute; but he that will not bring any reasons for what he sayes, is not worthy to have any reasons brought against him. For as for that onely slight reason which he intimates, that the Matter being contrived into such a rational or artificial disposure of parts, the immediate Artificer thereof must have animadversion and reason in it, it is onely said, not proved, and will reach no further, but that the ratio seminalis must at least proceed from something that is knowing, and be in some sense rational, but not have Reason and Animadversion in it self. The like confidence and ignorance is repeated and insisted upon in the 16 and 17 pages: but I let them passe.

Observation 14. Pag. 18,19.

These pages contain a certain preachment, which would have done well if it had been from some one that had more wit in knowing when to preach and when to hold his peace, and more charity to abstain from such undeserved chidings of Aristotle. But your unmeasureable and unmercifull chastisings of him, and so highly advancing and soothing up your self in your own windy conceits and fluttering follies make all your serious applications ridiculous and ineffectual.

Observation 15. Pag. 20.

Petition of St. Augustine, A Logica libera nos Domine, lin. 7. Assuredly, Philalethes, ever since the Church Litanie was put down, has used this of St. Augustine, and that with such earnestnesse and devotion that he has even extorted from Heaven the full grant of his Petition, and has become as free and clean from all sense and reason, as he is luxuriant and encumbred with disturbed and unsetled fancies and undigested imaginations.

Observation 16. Pages 21.

Lin. 3. These three Principles are the Clav[•]s of all Magick, &c. Here Philalethes like the Angel of the bottomless Pit, comes jingling with the Keyes of Magick in his hands. But he opens as Hokus Pokus do's his fists, where we see that here is nothing and there is nothing. But something he will seem to say, viz. That the first Principle is one in one, and one from one. He that has so many years so devoutly pray'd against Logick, do you expect when he speaks to hear reason? This is as much as to say nothing.

                       One in one, and one from one? Suppose a ripe Apple should drop into the rotten hollow of the tree that bore it. Is this Apple your mysterious Magical principle? It may be that, as well as any thing else, by this description. For it is one Apple, in one hollow, from one tree. O but he addes. It is a pure white Virgin. Some religious Nun I warrant you. No she may not be a Nun neither. For she is uxor Dei & stellarum. It seems then, there is a kinde of Plato's Common-wealth betwixt God and the Stars, and they have community of wives amongst them. But if she be so pure a Virgin-wife as you make her, how come some of her Husbands to wear horns as they doe, viz. Aries, Capricorn and others? But is this to Philosophize, or to play the Theomagician, Philalethes! thus to tell us of virgins, or wives with white peticoats, or to tell us that from this one there is a descent into four, &c? This is but idle treading of the air, and onely a symptome of a light swimmering fancy, that can have patience to write such hovering undeterminate stuffe as this, that belongs either almost to any thing or nothing. You even weary your Reader out, Philalethes! with such Metaphysicall dancings and airy fables.

Observation 17. Pag. 22.

Lin. 5. This is a Labyrinth and wilde of Magick where a world of Students have lost themselves. And you Philalethes! have not scaped scot-free. For you have lost your reason before as I told you, and your so much and so confidently conversing with mere Unities and Numbers, which in themselves design nothing, will teach you in time, to speak words without any inward phantasm of what you say. So that you shall bid fair for the losing of your fancy too, and then you will be as you are near it already, Vox, praeterea nihil, a mere noise and clatter of words.

Lin. 13. It moves here below in shades and tiffanies, &c. What a description is this of the Magicians fire? I suppose you mean the Magicians Thais. It moves in shades, that is, (for the text is very dark and wants a Commentary) in the Evening or Twilight. Tiffanies, is plain English, but white etheriall vestures, must be white Peticoats and white Aprons, or else white Aprons upon Blew Peticoats, and that she is exposed to such a publick prostitution passing through all hands, every one having the use of her body; this Theomagicians fire seems to me to be no other then some very common strumpet. But if you mean any thing but a Strumpet, you have a wondrous infected fancy, that dresses up your Theomagicall notions in such whorish attire. But of a sudden my Theomagician has left those more grosse and palpable expressions, and now dances very high in the air quite out of the Ken of our eye, like some Chymicall Spirit that has broke its Hermeticall prison, and flown away out of the Artist's sight and reach; being farre more invisible and thin now, then the finest Tiffany that ever took his sight, and more arid and slight then the faintest shade. I tell you once more, Anthroposophus! that Ternaries, and Qu[•]ternaries, and Decads and Monads, and such like words of number have no usefull sense nor signification, nor virtue, if unapplied to some determinate substance or thing. But our great Theomagician having no project in this writing that I see, but to amaze the world, contents himself onely to rattle his chain, and to astonish the rude and simple as if some Spirit or Conjurer was at hand, and so those words that are most sonorous and consist of the greatest number of syllables, please him better, then what have more solid signification, and a more setled and sober sense.

Observation 18. Pag. 24.

Lin. 17. He with the black Spaniell. As for your ador'd Magus with the black Spaniell, and that dark Disciple of Libanius Gallus, what I have said to you already, will serve here too. But my controversie is with you onely, Philalethes! a sworn enemy of Reason and Aristotle, and me thinks you are very like your self still in the twenty seventh page.

Observation 19. Pag. 27.

Lin. 22. I am certain the world will wonder I should make use of Scripture to establish Philosophy, &c. Here, Philalethes, you seem self-condemned even from your own speech, being conscious to your self, that all the world will be against you in this superstitious abuse of the Scripture. For are you wiser then all the world beside in this matter, because you have pray'd away all your Logick in St. Augustines Letanie? What profane boldnesse is this to distort that high Majesty of the holy Scripture to such poor and pitiful services, as to decide the controversies of the World and of Nature? As well becoming it is, as to set pies and pasties into the oven with the sacred leaves of the Bible? This is but a fetch of imperious Melancholy and Hypocriticall superstition, that under pretense of being more holy would prove more

Tyrannicall, and leave the understanding of man free in nothing at all, but bring in a philosophy too, Iure Divine! And I can further demonstrate to you (beside what I have intimated from the transcendency of the Scripture, and high scope and aim thereof) that the Scripture teacheth no secret or principle of Philosophy, of which there is any doubt amongst men in their wits. For either (as where it seems to speak ex professo of any such things) it do's it so obscurely that men rather father their own notions fetch'd from elsewhere, upon the Scripture; or else if it speak more plainly and litterally, yet it being allow'd by all sober men as well Jews as Christians, (as it is indeed undeniably evident from the passages themselves in Scripture) that it speaks so ordinarily according to the rude and vulgar use & apprehension of men, there can be no deciding collections in matters of Philosophy safely gathered out of it. Though I will not deny but that some Philosophick truths may have an happy and useful illustration and countenance from passages in Scripture; and their industry is not to be vilified that take any pains therein. But I do not believe that any man that has drove the proper use of the Scripture home to the most full and most genuine effect of it in himself, but will be so wise and so discreet, that he will be ashamed in good earnest to allow any such Philosophick abuse of it. But questionless the Scripture is the beginner, nourisher and emprover of that life and light which is better then all the Philosophy in the world. And he that stands in this light, the firmer and fuller he is possessed of it, he is the more able to judge both of Nature, Reason, and Scripture it self. But he that will speak out of his own rash heat, must needs run the hazard of talking at randum. And this I make the bolder in charity to pronounce, because I observe that the reverentiall abuse, and religious misapplication of the holy Writ to matters of Philosophy, for which it was not intended, do's in many well-meaning men eat out the use of their Reason, for the exercise whereof Philosophy was intended. And hence so much spurious and fantastick knowledge multiplies now adayes, to the prejudice of mans understanding, and to the intangling him in vain and groundlesse imaginations, fortuitously sprung up from uncircumspect Melancholy, dazled and stounded with the streamings and flashes of Its own pertinacious fancy: Which sometime is so powerful as to over-master the Melancholist into a credulity, that these flarings of false light in his dark Spirit are not from himself, but from a Divine Principle, the Holy Ghost. And then bidding a due to Reason, as having got some Principle above it, measures all truth merely by the greatnesse and powerfulnesse of the Stroke of the Phantasme. What ever fills the imagination fullest, must be the [•]ruest. And thus a rable of tumultuary and crasse representations must go for so many Revelations, and every heaving up by an Hypochondriacall flatulency must be conceited a rapture of the Spirit; they professing themselves to receive things immediately from God, when they are but the casuall figurations of their anxious fancy, busily fluttering about the Text; which they alwayes eye (though they dissemble it) as Hauks and Buzzards, flie they never so high, have their sight bent upon the Earth. And indeed if they should not forge their fancies into some tolerable suteablenesse with the letter of the Scripture, they would never be able to believe themselves, or at least to beget belief in others, that they are inspired: And so that high conceit insinuated into them by that wonderfull yet ordinary imposterous power of

Melancholy would fall to nothing, and they appear not so much as to themselves either Prophe[•]s or inspired. But this I have touched elsewhere. I will let it go. Onely let me cast in thus much: That he that mis-believes and layes aside clear and cautious reason in things that fall under the discussion of Reason, upon the praetence of hankering after some higher prinple, (which a thousand to one proves but the infatuation of Melancholy and a superstitious hallucination) is as ridiculous as if he would not use his naturall eyes about their proper object till the presence of some supernaturall light, or till he had got a pair of Spectacles made of the Crystalline Heaven, or of the Coelum Empyreum, to hang upon his Nose for him to look through. The truth is, He that layes aside Reason, casts away one of the most Soveraign Remedies against all melancholick impostures. For I conceive it would be very hard for men either to be deluded themselves, or to delude others by their conceited inspirations, if they would expect that every Revelation should be made good either by sound Reason, or a palpable and conspicuous Miracle. Which things if they were demanded of the inspired people when they come to seduce, surely they would sneak a way like the common Fidlers, being asked to play a Lesson on the Organs, or on the Theorbo.

Observation 20. Pag. 28, 29.

In the former page you could not part till you had made God and Nature mysteriously kisse. In this, you metamorphize Mercury and Sulphur into two Virgins, and make the Sun to have more Wives then ever Solomon had Concubines. Every Star must have in it, Vxor Solis. But what will become of this rare conceit of yours, if the Stars themselves prove Suns? And men far more learned then your self are very inclinable to think so. But now he has fancied so many Wives, he falls presently upon copulation helter skelter, and things done in private betwixt Males and Females, &c.

Verily, Anthroposophus! if you had but the patience to consider your own Book seriously, and examine what Philosophick truth you have all this while delivered since your contemning of Aristotle's definition of Nature, Form, and Soul; you shall find in stead of his sober description from the proper operations and effects of things, nothing but a dance of foolish and lascivious words: almost every page being hung with Lawns and Tiffanies, and such like Tapestry, with black Shadowing hoods, white Aprons and Peticoats, and I know not what. And this must be a sober and severe Tractate of Anima Abscondita. As if the Soul were dressed in womans apparell, the better to be concealed, and to make an escape. And to as much purpose is your heaps of liquorsome Metaphors, of Kissing, of Coition, of ejection of Seed, of Virgins, of Wives, of Love-whispers, and of silent Embraces, and your Magicians Sun and Moon, those two Universall Peers, Male and Female, King and Queen Regents, alwayes young and never old; what is all this but a mere Morris-dance and May-game of words, that signifie nothing, but that you are young, Anthroposophus! and very sportfull, and yet not so young but that you are marriageable, and want a good wife, that your sense may be as busie as your fancy about such things as those, and so peradventure in due time, the extravagancy of your heat being spent, you may become more sober.

Observation 21. Pag. 30.

Lin. 8. It is light onely that can be truly multiplyed. But if you tell us not what this light is, we are stil but in the dark. I doe not mean whether Light be a Virgin or a Wife, or whose Wife, or what clothes she wears, Tiffanies or Cobweblawns, but in proper words what the virtue and nature of it is. Whether Corpus or Spiritus, Substance or Accident, &c. But, Anthroposophus! you doe not desire at all to be understood, but please your self onely to rant it in words, which can procure you nothing but the admiration of fools. If you can indeed doe any thing more then another man, or can by sound reason make good any more truth to the World then another man can, then it is something; if not, it is a meer noise and buzze for children to listen after.

SECT. III.

22. Certain notable Quotations of Eugenius his out of Scripture and other writers. 23, He presages what ill acceptance his high mysteries will have with the School-Divines. 24. He acknowledges the Scriptures obscure and mystical. 25. Some Philosophers that have attain'd to the Ternarius, could not for all that obtain the perfect Medicine; there being but six Atuhors he ever met with that understood that mystery fully. 26. That this Medicine transformes the body into a glorified state, and that the material parts are never seen more.

The divine Spirit swallowing them into Invisibility. 27. He complains how ready the world will be to boy him out of countenance for his presumption in so high mysteries, especialy the reverend Doctors, who, he says, sustain their gravity on these two crutches, pretended Sanctity and a Beard. 28. He advises us not to tamper with this Theomagical Medicine rashly. 29. Adding a monition out of the Poet. 30. That the Spirit whereby a man becomes magically wise & a lawful worker of miracles, is the Christian Philosophers stone and the white stone. 31. He entreats the Reader not to mistake him as if he had as yet attain'd to this stone, because God is no debtor of his. 32. He only affirmes himself to be an Indicatour of it to others, as a Mercury to a traveller on the way. 33. And that if you could show him one good Christian capable of the secret, he would show him an infallible way to come by it.

Observation 22. Pag. 31.

FRom this 31 page to the 41, you have indeed set down the most couragious and triumphant testimonies, and of the highest, and most concerning truth that belongs to the soul of man, the attainment whereof is as much beyond the Philosophers stone, as a Diamond is beyond a peble stone. But the way to this mystery lies in a very few words, which is, a peremptory & persistent unraveling & releasing of the Soul by the power of God, from all touch and sense of sin and corruption. Which every man by how much the more he makes it his sincere aim, by so much the more wise and discreet he will appear, and will be most able to judge what is sound and what is flatuous. But to deal plainly with you, my Philalethes! I have just cause to suspect that there is more wind then truth as yet in your writings. And that it is neither from reason nor from experience, that yon seem to turn your face this way; but high things and fiery and sonorous expressions of them in Authors, being sutable to your Youthfulnesse and Poetical phansie, you swagger and take on presently, as if, because you have the same measure of heat, you were of the same fraternity with the highest Theomagicians in the World. Like as in the story, where the Apples & Horsdung were caryed down together in the same stream, the Fragments of Horsdung cryed out, Nos poma natamus. Pardon the homelyness of the comparison. But you that have flung so much dirt upon Aristotle, and the two famous Universities, it is not so unjust if you be a little pelted with dung your self.

Observation 23. Pag. 42.

Lin. 12. I know some illiterate School-Divines, &c. He cannot be content to say any thing that he thinks is magnificently spoken, but he must needs trample upon some or other by way of triumph and ostentation, one while clubbing of Aristotle, another while so pricking the Schoolmen, and provoking the Orthodoxe Divines, that he conceits they will all run upon him at once, as the Iews upon the young Martyr St. Steven, and stone him for his strange mysteries of his Theomagick stone. Truly, Anthroposophus! there are some good things fall from you in your own style, and many cited out of considerable Authors, but you do so soil and bemar all with your juvenile immoralities and Phantastries, that you lose as much in the one a you get in the other.

Observation 24. Pag. 44.

Lin. 4. The Scripture is obscure and mystical, &c. And therefore say I, Philalethes! a very uncertain foundation to build a Philosophy on; but indeed such a mystical Philosophy as you would build, may be erected upon any ground, or no ground, may hang as a castle in the air.

Observation 25. Pag. 45.

Lin. 3. I never met in all my reading but with six Authors, &c. But how do you know that these six did perfectly understand the Medicine, and this stupendious mystery, unlesse you understood it perfectly your selfe? So that you would intimate to the world that you doe perfectly understand it.

Observation 26.

Lin. 25. After this the material parts are never more to be seen. This is the nature of the Medicine then, not to rectifie a visible body but to destroy it. Like the cure of the head-ake, by cutting off the neck. Death indeed will cure all Diseases. But you will say this is not death, but a change or translation. Nor the other a medicine, but Spiritus medicus. So that in multitude of words you doe but obscure knowledge.

Observation 27. Pag. 46.

Lin. 5. Boy me out of countenance, &c. Here Philalethes is mightily well pleased to think that one of his greenness of yeers should arrive to this miraculous ripenesse and maturity of knowledge in the most hidden mysteries of Theosophy. And comparing himselfe with the Reverend Doctors, finds the greatest difference to be this, that they indeed have more beard, but he more wit. And I suppose he would intimate unto us, that they have so little wit that they know not the use of their own limbs. For if he make their beards their crutches, they cannot scape going on their heads, as if they were not inverted but rightly postured plants, or walking Stipites. In good truth you are a notable Wagg, Philalethes!

Observation 28.

Lin. 10. Let me advise thee, I say, not to attempt any thing rashly. And I commend your wit, Anthroposophus! in this point. For you are so wary of putting your finger into the fire, that like the Monkey you will rather use the Cats foot then your own, as you will evidently show anon.

Observation 29.

Lin. 22. Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. Keep your self there Philalethes! 'Tis a great deal better peece of devotion then that of Augustine, A Logic â libera nos Domine.

Observation 30. Pag. 48. 49.

Lin. 22. This is the Christian Philosophers Stone, And, this is the white Stone. Which you, Philalethes!

have covered over with so much green mosse, that you have made it more hidden then ever before. Having little will, and lesse power to show it, but in all likelyhood a great purpose of ostentating your self.

Observation 31. Pag. 49.

Lin. 10. But Reader! be not deceived in me, I am not a man of any such faculties, &c. I warrant you, Anthroposophus! I am not so easily deceived in you. You have walked before me in very thin transparent Tiffanies all this while; or, if you will, danced in a net. I suspected you from the very first that you would prove so good and so wise as you now plainly professe your self. But that you are no better then you are, you say is because God is no debtor of yours. Why! do's God Almighty run so much in some mens Arrears that he is constrain'd to pawn to them that precious Jewell, or to give them the White stone, to quit scores with them? How far is this from Popery, Philalethes! that you seem elsewhere so much to disclaim?

Observation 32.

Lin. 13. I can affirme no more of my self, &c. Right! Philalethes! Right! Your fancy was never so happy as in transfiguring your self into a Wooden Mercury, that points others the way which it self knows not, nor can ever goe, but stands stock still.

Observation 33.

Lin. 18. Shew me but one good Christian, &c. Why!

then it seems Philalethes! that you are no good Christian your selfe, and uncapable of the secret you are so free to impart to others. Or it is your discretion to attempt nothing your selfe rashly, but as I said before to doe as the Ape or Monkey, take the Cats foot to rake the Chesnut out of the fire.

SECT. IV.

34, He speaks here of the natural coelestial Medicine more ordinary then the former, which after the middle Nature-fire is sublimed per Trigonum & Circulum and the Terra media, which is betwixt the Unarius and Binarius, is separated from the Magical compounded Earth, becomes the true Petra Crystallina, a bright Virgin Earth, Terra Maga in aethere clarificata, carying in its belly Wind and Fire; to which if you unite the Heaven in a triple proportion, applying a generative heat to both, they will attract from above the Star-fire of Nature, and thus you shall have gloriam totius mundi, & fugiet à te omnis obscuritas. 35. Though the law of Nature be infallible in it self, yet God can repeal in particular what he has enacted in the general. 36. Eugenius his slight ground of Faith, which is the hope or desire that what we believe might be true. 37 Certain moral instructions of his to his student of Magick. 38. His salutation of the river Yska from whom he pretends to have learned many virtues. 39. He walks all night long by this river side a stargazing. 40. He endeavours to make his mind as cleer as Yska's Crystalline streams. 41. Admires the lownesse of his banks. 42. As also their homely cloathing, one and the same all the yeer long. 43. He learns a lesson of Simplicity from hence. 44. Is transported in beholding the pure type of piety in the River. 45. Is astonished at the benignity of his streams, they inriching those shoars that infringe their liberty by keeping them in their channel. 46. He takes instruction from the River to swim up to Heaven in his tears, as the River runs down to the Sea, but expresses himselfe so obscurely, that he seems to suppose the River to run to Heaven to show him the way thither.

Observation 34. Pag. 50.

HE tells us here an obscure AEnigmatical story of attaining the Natural coelestial Medicine, and that without any retractation, as if he himself had been a potent and successeful Operatour in the Mysterie. But let me once more take notice of the fondness of this affected obscurity in words, that no man be any whit taken with that sleight of imposture, and become guilty of that passion of fools, causeless admiration. For the most contemptible Notion in the World, may be so uncertainly and obscurely set out by universal and hovering tearms taken from Arithmetick and Geometry which of themselves signifie no real thing, or else from the Catachrestical use of the terms of some more particular and substantial Science, that the dark dresse thereof may bring it into the creditable suspicion o[•] proving some venerable mystery; when as, (if it were but with faithfulness and perspicuity discovered and exposed to the judgement & free censure of sober men) it would be found but either some sorry incon
[•]iderable vulgar truth, or light conjectural imagination, or else a ghastly prodigious lie. But say in good sadnesse, Philalethes! is not all this that you tattle in this page, a mere vapour and tempestuous buzz[•] of yours, made out of words you meet in Books you understand not? and casuall fancies sprung from an heedlesse Brain? Is it any thing but the activitie of your desire to seem some strange mysterious Sophist to the World; and so to draw the eyes of men after you? Which is all the Attraction of the Star-fire of Nature you aim at, or can hope to be able to effect. Did your Sculler, or shittle Skull ever arrive at that Rock of Crystall you boast of? Or did you ever, saving in your fancie, soil that bright Virgin Earth? did your eyes, hands, or Experience ever reach her? Tell me what Gyant could ever so lustily show you Lincoln-Calves, or hold you up so high by the eares, as to discover that Terra Maga in AEthere Clarificata. Till you show your self wise and knowing in effect, give me leave to suspect you a mere ignorant boaster from your Airy unsettled words. And that you have nothing but fire and winde in your Brains, what ever your Magicall Earth has in its belly.

Observation 35. Pag. 51.

Lin. 6. He can repeal in particular. Now, Anthroposophus! you make good what I suspected, that is, that you do not tell us any thing of this coelestiall naturall Medicine, of your own Experience. For you being conscious to your self of being no good Christian, as you confessed before, and God having not given so full a charter to the Creature but he may interpose and stop proceedings, surely at least you had so much wit, as not to try where there was so just cause of fear of frustration and miscarriage. So that you go about to teach the World what you have not to any purpose learned your self.

Observation 36.

Lin. 27. And who is he that will not gladly believe, &c. A most rare and highly rais'd notion. You resolve then that holy expectancy of the Saints of God concerning the life to come, into that fond kind of credulity and pleasant self-flattery, Facilè credimus quod fieri volumus, and yet you seem to unsay it again toward the end of this Period. And we will permit you, Anthroposophus! to say and unsay, to do and undo; for the day is long enough to you, who by your Magick and celestiall Medicine are able to live till all your friends be weary of you.

Observation 37. Pag. 52.

In this whole page Anthroposophus is very Gnomicall and speaks Aphorisms very gracefully. But as morall as he would seem to be, this is but a prelude to a piece of Poetick ostentation, and he winds himself into an occasion of shewing you a Paper of verses of his. If you do but trace his steps, you shall see him waddle on like some Otter or Water-Rat and at last flounce into the River Vsk. Where notwithstanding afterward he would seem to dresse himself like a Water-Nymph at those Crystall streams, and will sing as sweet as any Siren or Mermaid. And truly, Master Anthroposophus, if that heat that enforces you to be a Poet, would but permit you in any measure to be prudent, cautiously rationall, and wise, you would in due time prove a very considerable

Gentleman. But if you will measure the truth of thing[•] by the violence and overbearing of fancy and windy Representations, this Amabilis insania will so intoxicate you, that to sober men you will seem little better then a refined Bedlam. But now to the Poetry it self.

Observation 38. Pag. 53.

'Tis day my Crystall Vsk, &c. Here the Poet begins to sing, which being a sign of joy is intimation enough to us also to be a little merry. The four first verses are nothing else but one long-winded good-morrow to his dear Yska. Where you may observe the discretion and charity of the Poet, who being not resaluted again by this Master of so many virtues, the River Vsk; yet learns not this ill Lesson of clownishnesse, nor upbraids his Tutor for his Rustici[•]y. Was there never an Eccho hard by to make the River seem affable and civil, as well as pure, patient, humble, and thankfull?

Observation 39.

Lin. 17. And weary all the Planets with mine eyes. A description of the most impudent Star-gazer that ever I heard of, that can outface all the Planets in one Night. I perceive then, Anthroposophus! that you have a minde to be thought an Astrologian as well as a Magician. But me thinks, an Hill had been better for this purpose then a River. I rather think that your head is so hot and your minde so ill at ease, that you cannot lie quiet in your bed as other Mortals do, but you sleeping waking are carryed out, like the Noctambuli in their dreams, and make up a third with Will with, the Wisp, and Meg with the Lanthorn, whose naturall wandrings are in marish places, and near Rivers sides.

Observation 40.

Lin. ultima. Sure I will strive to gain as clear a minde. Which I dare swear you may do at one stroke, would you but wipe at once all your fluttering and fortuitous fancies out of it. For you would be then as clearly devoid of all shew of knowledge, as Aristotle's Abrasa Tabula, or the wind, or the flowing, water of written characters.

Observation 41. Pag. 54.

Lin. 3. How I admire thy humble banks! Why! be they lower then the River it self? that had been admirable indeed. Otherwise I see nothing worthy admiration in it.

Observation 42.

Lin. 4. But the same simple vesture all the year. This River Yska then I conceive, according to your Geography, is to be thought to crawl under the AEquatour, or somewhere betwixt the Tropicks. For were it in Great Britain or Ireland, certainly the palpable difference of seasons there, would not permit his banks to be alike clad all the year long. The fringe of reed and flagges, besides those gayer Ornaments of herbs and flowers, cannot grow alike on your Yskaes banks all Summer and Winter. So that you fancy him more beggerly then he is, that you may afterward conceit him more humble then he ought to be.

Observation 43.

Lin. 5. I'le learn simplicity of thee, &c. That's your modesty, Anthroposophus! to say so: For you are so learned that you may be a Doctour of Simplicity your self, and teach others.

Observation 44.

Lin. 9. Let me not live, but I'm amaz'd to see what a clear type thou art of pietie. How mightily the man is ravished with the contemplation of an ordinary Water-course! A little thing will please you I perceive, as it do's children, nay amaze you. But if you be so much inamoured on your Yska, do that out of love that Aristotle did out of indignation, embrace his streams, nay drown your self, and then you will not live. You are very hot Antroposophus! that all the cool air from the River Yska will not keep you from cursing your self, with such mortall imprecations.

Observation 45.

Lin. 11. Why should thy flouds enrich those shores, &c. Why! how now! what's the matter, Philaleehes
[•] that you and the banks no better agree? If you could so soon fall into the River as you fall out with the shore, you would to your great honour like Aristotle, be drown'd indeed. In good truth you are a very sickle-headed Gentleman, Philalethes! thus in a moment to reproach what you did so highly admire even now, viz. the banks of Yska, which you then made so simple, so humble, and so innocent, that you fancied them an eximious pattern of those virtues for your self to imitate. But now all of a sudden, your Poeticall rapture I suppose spoiling your memory, you sling durt on those banks that before you looked on as holy ground; and accuse them of injury, tyranny, and cruelty against the streams of your beloved Yska. But any ordinary Advocate may easily make good the Banks part against the River. For I say unto thee, O thou man of light imaginations! that the banks of Yska are just, in keeping but the ground that ever was allotted them; but where ever they have lost ground, it is the violence and the usurpation of the injurious River, that has worn them away and overrunne them in an hostile manner. Besides I say, that the Banks aforesaid are very charitable and pious as well as just, and do not return revenge for injury. For whereas the aforesaid River, both by open force and secret undermining, doth dayly endeavour to wear away and destroy the Banks, and encroach upon the neighbouring ground, (which attempt is as sottish and foolish as unjust, for so the River would be lost and drunk up by the Earth; Nor can there be any River without banks, more then an Hill without a valley;) yet notwithstanding all this provocation of the River aforesaid, the Banks are so patient, charitable, and of so Christian-like nature, that they preserve in being and good plight their inveterate enemy, and keep up that carefully and stoutly in its right form and perfection, that daily practises and plots their expected destruction. What do you answer to this, Philalethes! All that virtue and piety which you fancie in the River, you see now plainly growing upon the Banks. So that you may gather it, if you have a minde to it, without wetting your finger.

Observation 46.

Lin. ultima. Help me to runne to Heavon, as thou dost there. Ha, ha, he! Why! I pray thee, do's Yska run to Heaven there? No it runs down into the Sea, as the Devils and the Heard of Swine did; whither I hope you do not desire to go for company, Philalethes! But I wonder you being a whole day and a night on the banks of Yska, that no fish not so much as a small Stittlebag has leapt up into your fancie all this time. You might have learned many rare lectures of Moralitie from them too. As for example; in stead of due vigilancie you might learn from the fishes eyes never closing, to sleep and dream waking; or in stead of being mute as a fish when you have nothing to say, to say nothing to the purpose, or to expresse your self as unintelligibly as if you had said nothing. But these and the like accomplishments naturally growing in you, you wanted no outward emblems to reminde you of them, so that I hold you here excusable. But before I leave this rare Poem of yours, let me onely take notice thus far: that your Leyitie and Fantastrie do's much eclipse the glorious suspicion of your Theomagicall Facultie. For it will seem very incredible that so light and fancifull a Poet should ever prove a grave and wonder working Magician.

SECT. V.

47. He recommends the walking and meditating by River sides and in Groves. 48. He discredits all modern writers saving Michael Sendivow and the Authour of Physica Restituta. 49. He taxes that incomparable Philosopher Des-Cartes, as if he wrote nothing but whimzies. 50. He conceits himself to have been strutting on the stage all this while in the view of the World, but at last gives place to the next Actor. 51. He suspects some Peripatetick will take the next turn, whom he professes he shall at all adventures receive with scorn and laughter. 52. He takes it for granted that whosoever shall presume to write against him, will but prove himself a fool, and professes that the best way to convince such is to neglect them.

Observation 47. Pag. 55. l. 1.

THis is the way I would have thee walk in &c. viz. In Majestick Groves, and Woods, and by River sides. You are not then I perceive, an Anti-Peripatetick, Philalethes! though you be so violent an Anti-Aristotelean. But with such pompous gravitie to give such slight Precepts as of walking by Rivers sides and in Groves, &c. argues more then enough of moping distempered Melancholie in you, and that it may, if you take not heed, make you indulge so much to delusive fancie, that you will be never able to set your eye again upon solid Reason, but range and ramble like one lost in a Wood.

Observation 48.

Lin. 9. To trust no Modern but Mich. Sendivow, and Physica Restituta. How mightily are these two heholden to you, Philalethes, if you had but so many grains of judgement and discretion as to make you able to passe sentence upon any considerable Authour? But what do you mean by trusting? To give faith and credence to them as to Holy Writ? If so, I perceive you have also a Triplicity of Bibles, viz. the usuall one, Mich. Sendivow, and Physica Restituta. But we ordinary Mortalls hope to be as wise and as happy with our single one, as you with your advantage of three.

Observation 49.

Lin. 13. With the Whymzies of Des-Cartes. This young man has as little manners as wit, to speak thus reproachfully of the most admirable Philosophie, that ever yet appeared in these European parts since Noahs floud. Certainly, Anthroposophus! you are set upon it to demonstrate your self a pure pitifull Novice in Knowledge, whom onely Ignorance makes so magisterially confident. But for thy want of due sagacitie, I will take thee by the Nose, O Philalethes, with this one Dilemma, which shall pinch thee as hard, as St. Dunstan did the roring Fiend with a red-hot pair of tongs. Thus; Either thou hast read Des Cartes his naturall Philosophie, or thou hast not. If thou hast read it, thus to contemn it and term it a Whymzie, (whereas there was never any thing proposed to the World in which there is more wary, subtil, and close contexture of reason, more coherent uniformitie of all parts with themselves, or more happy conformitie of the whole with the Phaenomena of Nature) is to proclaim to all that understand Des-Carte's Philosophie, that thou hast a very broken, impatient, and unsteddie Apprehension, or a very dull and slow wit, and such as cannot discern when it lighteth upon what is most exactly rationall, and when not. But what is most exactly rationall, as his Philosophie indeed is to any competent Judge of Reason, is least of all whymzicall; but whymzies more naturally lodge in their brains that are loosly fancifull, not in theirs that are Mathematically and severely wise. So that this reproach returns upon thine own addle pate, O inconsiderate Philalethes! But if thou didst never read his Philosophie, and yet pronouncest thus boldly of it; that is not onely impudently uncivil, but extremely and insufferably unjust.

Observation 50. Pag. 56.

Lin. 6. I will now withdraw, and leave the Stage to the next Actour. Exit Tom Fool in the play.

Observation 51.

Lin. 8. Some Peripatetick perhaps whose Sic probo shall serve me for a Comedie. So it seems if a man had seriously argued with you all this time, you would onely have returned him laughter in stead of a solid answer, and so from Tom Fool in the Play, you would have become a naturall Fool. But we have had the good hap to prevent you, & in stead of Sic probo's, to play the Fool for company, that is, to answer a fool according to his foolishnesse, that is, to rail and call names, and make ridiculous. Into which foolish postures as often as I have distorted my self, so often have I made my self a fool that you may become wise, and amend that in your self, that you cannot but dislike in me. Nor would I ever meddle with you, as merry as I seem, but upon this and the like serious intentions. And must needs reckon it amongst the rest of your follies, that you expected that some severe Peripatetick would have laid batterie against you, with syllogisme upon syllogisme, and so all confuted your Book, that there had not been left one line entire. But assure your self Philalethes! the Peripateticks are not altogether given so much to scolding, that they will contest with a shadow, or fight with the winde. Nor so good marks-men, as to level at a Wilde-goose flying. You are so fluttering and unsettled in your notions, and obscure in your terms, that unlesse you will be more fixt, and sit fair, and draw your Wood-cocks head out of the bush or thicket, they will not be able to hit your meaning. Which I suspect you will never be perswaded to do, that you may keep your self more secure from Gunshot.

Observation 52.

Lin. 13. And the best way to convince fools, &c. How wise Anthroposophus is to what is evil! Here he makes sure of calling him Fool first who ever shall attempt to write any thing against his Book. But it is no such mischief, Anthroposophus! to be called fool. The worst jest is when a man is so indeed. And if you had but the skill to winnow away all the chaffe of humorous words and uncouth freaks and fetches of fancie, and affected phrases, which are neither the signes nor causes of any wisdome in a man; all that will be left of this learned discourse of yours, will prove such a small mo[•]tie of that knowledge your presumptuous mind conceited to be in her self, that you would then very sadly of your own accord (which would be your first step to become wise indeed) confesse your self a Fool. And this I understand of your knowledge in Nature. Now for that in Moralitie; It is true, you often take upon you the gravitie to give precepts of life, as especially in the 52 and 55 pages of this Tractate. But you do it so conceitedly, with such chiming and clinching of words, Antithetal Librations, and Symphonical rappings, that to sober men you cannot but seem rather like some idle boy playing on a pair of Knick-knacks to please his own ear and fancie, then a grave Moralist speaking wholesome words and giving weightie counsel of life and manners. So that the best that you do, is but to make the most solemn things ridiculous, by your Apish handling of them. I suppose because a Religious Humour has been held on in some Treatises, with that skill and judgement, or at least good successe, that it has won the approbation and applause of most men; an eager desire after fame has hurried you out upon the like attempt. And though you would not call your Book Religio Magici, as that other was Religio Medici; yet the favourable conceit you had of your own Worth, made you bold to vie with him, and in imitation of that, you have stuffed your Book here and there with a tuft of Poetrie, as a Gammon of Bacon with green hearbs, to make it tast more savourly. But all will not do, poor Magicus! For now your designe is discovered, you are as contemptible as any Juggler is before him that knows all his tricks aforehand. And you run the same fortune that AEsop's Asse, who ineptly endeavouring to imitate the Courtship and winning carriage of his Masters fawning and leaping Spaniel, in stead of favour found a club for his rude performance. But you, Magicus! do not onely paw ill-favouredly with your fore-feet, but kick like mad with your hinder feet, as if you would dash out al the Aristoteleans brains. And do you think that they are all either so faint-hearted, that they dare not, or so singularly moralized, that Socrates-like, if an Asse kick they will not kick again? Yes certainly next to your self they are as like as any to play the Asses, and to answer you kick for kick, if you will but stand fair for them. But you h[•]ve got such a Magicall sleight of hiding your head, and nipping in your buttocks, like the Hob-gobling that in the shape of an Horse dropt the children off one by one off his tail into the water, that they cannot finde you out nor feel whereabout you would be, else certainly they would set a mark upon your hinder parts. For if I, my dear Eugenius! who am your brother Philalethes, am forced out of care and judgement to handle you so seeming harshly and rigidly as I do, what do you think would become of you, si incideres in ipsas Belluas, if you should fall amongst the irefull Aristoteleans themselves? would you be able to escape alive out of their hands? Wherefore good brother Philalethes! hereafter be more discreet, and endeavour rather to be wise then to seem so, and to quit your self from being a fool, then to fancy the Aristoteleans to be such.

Upon the Authors generous designe, in his Observations, of discovering and discountenancing all mysteriously masked non-sense, and imposturous fancy; the sworn Enemies of Sound-Reason and Truth.

NObly design'd! let not a Sunday sute
Make us my Gaffer for my Lord salute:
Nor his Saints cloathes deceive, O comely dresse!
Like to a Long-lane Doublets wide excesse.
How like a Sack it sits? Less far would fit,
Did he proportion but his garb and Wit.
The Wight mistakes his size, each wiseman sees
His mens Fourteens shrink to a childrens Threes.
Fill out thy Title, man! think'st thou canst daunt
By pointing to the sword of Iohn of Gaun[•]?
Thou canst not wield it yet; an emptie name
Do's no more feats then a meer painted flame.
Rare Soul! whose words refin'd from flesh and blood
Are neither to be felt nor understood:
But if they sacred be, because not sense;
To Bedlam, Sirs! the best Divines come thence.
Your new-found Lights may like a falling Starre,
Seem heavenly Lamps, when they but Gellies are.
An high swoln Wombs bid fair, but time grown nigh
The promis[•]d birth proves but a Tympanie.
Should Superstition, what it most doth fly,
Seek to take shelter in Philosophy?
And Sacred Writ, sole image of sure Truth,
Be pull'd by th'nose by every idle youth?
And made to bend as seeming to incline
To all the fooleries hee'l call Divine?
Find out the Word in Scripture, all is found
Swarms of Conceits buzze up from this one ground.
As if the Cobler all his trade would show
From mention made of Gibeon's clouted shooe:
Or Bakers their whole Art at large would read
From the short record of the mouldy Bread.
Is this the spirit? thus confus'dly mad?
Antipodal to him the Chaos had?
Fell boistrous blast[•] that with one Magick puff
Turns the Schools Glory to a Farthing snuff[•]
And 'gainst that ancient Sage the World adores,
Like to a Lapland whirlewind loudly roares.
Yet from thy travels in the search of things,
Ridiculous Swain! what shallow stuff thou bring'st!
What cloaths they wear, Vails, Tiff'nies, dost relate,
Thou art Philosophies Tom Coriat.
Else brave Des Cartes, whom fools cannot admire,
Had nere been sindg'd by thy wild Whimzie fire.
Poor Galen's Antichrist[•] though one Purge of his
Might so unmagick thee as make thee wise.
Physick cures phrenzie, knows inspired wit
O[•]t proves a meer Hypochondriack fit.
Agrippa's Cur sure kennels in thy weamb,
Thou yelpest so and barkest in a dream;
Or if awake, thou dost on him so fawn,
And bite all else that hence his Dog th'art known.
But I will spare the lash, t'was my friends task
Who rescuing Truth engag'd put on this mask.
Thus do's some careful Prince disguised goe,
To keep his Subjects from the intended blow;
Nor could his lofty soul so low descend,
But to uncheat the World; a noble end!
And now the night is gone, we plainly find
'Twas not a Light but rotten Wood that shin'd.
We owe this day (my dearest friend) to thee,
All eyes but Night-birds now th' Imposture see.

I. F.

FINIS.

Colophon

Henry More, Observations upon Anthroposophia Theomagica, and Anima Magica Abscondita (London: J. Flesher, 1655). Written under the pseudonym Alazonomastix Philalethes. First published as part of the compound volume that also contained Enthusiasmus Triumphatus and The Second Lash of Alazonomastix. One hundred and one observations across eight sections: forty-nine on Anthroposophia Theomagica, fifty-two on Anima Magica Abscondita, plus observations on the Advertisement and Preface. The commendatory verse at the close is signed "I. F." — possibly John Finch (1626–1682), More's close friend and fellow Cambridge man.

This text preserves the living argument between More and Vaughan in the archive. The archive holds Vaughan's Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650) and Anima Magica Abscondita (1650), More's Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (1656), The Second Lash of Alazonomastix (1651), and Mastix his Letter to a Private Friend (1651), More's The Immortality of the Soul (1659), and Robert Fludd's Mosaicall Philosophy (1659) and Doctor Fludds Answer (1631) — the full constellation of the Cambridge–Hermetic debate.

Source text from the EEBO-TCP Phase I transcription (TCP ID: A51300, Wing M2649, ESTC R203116). TEI XML from the Text Creation Partnership, University of Michigan. CC0 public domain. Sixty-nine illegible gaps from the original microfilm are marked [•]. Sixteen passages of Greek and Latin are marked [non-Latin text] where the TCP transcribers could not render non-Latin script. One misprinted observation number in the Anima Magica Abscondita section (Observation "17" for Observation 7, Section I) is preserved from the 1655 original. Abbreviation strokes expanded; end-of-line hyphens joined; forty-eight page-break paragraph splits repaired.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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